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LOWELL LECTURES. 


VOLUME II. 


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LOWELL LECTURES 


ON THE 


EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 


RY 


JOHN’ GORHAM PALPREY: 


WITH A DISCOURSE 


ON THE 


LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN LOWELL, JR., 


By EDWARD EVERETT. 


BOSTON: 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 


M DCCC XLIIl. 


Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1843, 
By Joun Amory LoweLL, 


in the Clerk?’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


I. R. BUTTS, PRINTER, 
No. 2 School Street. 


CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND. 


COURSE IL. 


SURVEY OF THE JEWISH, PAGAN, AND DEISTICAL 
A PRIORI, OBJECTIONS. 


[conwrINvuED.] 


LECTURE XI. 


enOUNDS OF DAGAN UNBETIER wy 3 pele | Ug 


LECTURE XII. 


Grounps or Pagan Unpenier [continvep], . . . . 36 


LECTURE XIII. 


Grounbs oF Pagan UnBEier [conrinvep], . . . . 67 


LECTURE XIV. 


RENEWAL OF THE Controversy In MopERN Times, . 99 


LECTURE XV. 


DeisticaL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, . . . . . . 127 


Vill CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND. 


LECTURE (ANe- 


DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, FURTHER CONSIDERED.— 
SKEPTICAL ‘TENDENCY OF CERTAIN PHILOSOPHICAL 
Waivincs=-CONCHUSION; fi, MRO fe eres! ene eee 


COURSE III. 
SURVEY OF THE OPINIONS OF SEVERAL MODERN 
WRITERS. 


LECTURE, XVFL 


Opjsections oF Lorp SHAFTESBURY AND Lorp Bo.in- 


BROKE el cle ira tach at ou a neces 


LECTURE XVIII. 


OpsectIONS oF ANTHONY COLLINS, «© - + + + + . 211 


LECTURE XIX. 


OpsecTIONS oF ToLanp, Wootston, MoreGan, AND Cuups, 245 


LECTURE XxX. 


Opsections oF Hume aND GIBBON, . - » + + + uueee 


LECTURE XXI. 


INFIDELITY IN FRANCE IN THE E1GHTEENTH CENTURY, 316 


LECTURE XXII. 


Ossections or Tuomas Pains, . .. . . . + - S49 


LECTURE XXIII. 


ineeciay IN GERMAN te aipaAede so}. Jee 


LECTURE XXIV. 


Recent Srate oF Opinion in GERMANY AND France, 416 


COURS Het. 


SURVEY OF THE JEWISH, PAGAN, AND 
DEISTICAL A PRIORI, OBJECTIONS. 


[CONTINUED. ] 


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LE OPORE “xT: 


GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. 


My last two Lectures presented a sketch of the 
argument maintained by Jews in justification of 
their rejection of our faith. I proceed next to some 
account of the same controversy with the ancient 
heathens, and shall confine myself this evening to 
remarks upon the work of one of their writers on 
this subject, the Epicurean Celsus. 

A preliminary observation needs to be made on 
the limited extent to which our religion gained cre- 
dence with the idolatrous contemporaries of its first 
preachers ; in other words, on its rejection by them, 
to the extent that it was rejected. And on this, I 
remark, first, that it is a mere fallacious artifice in 
reasoning, and that a very flimsy one, to say that 
the evidence could not have been good, since it left 
such numbers unconverted. ‘The burden of proof 
is undoubtedly on the other side. The proper 
inquiry is, If the evidence was not good, how came 


A GROUNDS OF 


it to convert such numbers? Quiescence presents 
no problem to be solved. It is change, that beto- 
kens some impulse suitable to produce it. It is 
change that requires to be explamed. Change is 
an effect demanding the action of some cause. ‘T’o 
ask why numbers remained where they were, Is 
to ask no significant question. It answers itself. 
They remained where they were, because there 
they had been. But if other numbers did not re- 
main where they had been, if their quiescence was 
overcome, then there had been some cause in ac- 
tion; some force had been applied to move them 
from their old position. 

I repeat, that it is not customary nor reasonable 
to demand an explanation of the continuance of an 
already existing state of things, nor to insist that 
an alleged cause could not have operated, because, 
to a greater or less extent, that state of things 
remained undisturbed. ‘The material fact is, that 
to another extent, greater or less, it was disturbed ; 
and this fact compels the inference, that some ade- 
quate cause must have been in action. But not to 
rest in this general statement of an unquestionable 
principle, [ would recall attention to a course of re- 
mark in a former lecture,* (which we cannot stop, 
nor can there be occasion, to reconsider in full,) to 
the effect that, for the very reason and to the very 
extent that Christianity was so indispensably need- 
ful to man, its evidence had to be offered to dis- 


* See Vol. I. p. 281, et seq. 


PAGAN UNBELIEF. 5 


ordered, reluctant, uncongenial, perverse minds. 
No fact is more familiar, none more constantly 
brought to notice in our daily experience, than that 
different men receive the same evidence differently, 
according to their respective previously existing 
states of feeling. The mind refuses to approach 
what it has no relish for. When approached, the 
mind practises frauds upon itself, so as to evade its 
force. Had men all been saints, Christianity, with 
its ample evidence, would have at once advanced 
to an unquestioned sway. But had men all been 
saints, they would not have so needed Christianity ; 
and the very basis of its proof, which is supplied by 
its necessity, would have been withdrawn. Because 
they were not saints, but benighted sinners, they 
were in absolute want of this agent of reform; and 
for the same reason its triumphs were impeded. 
That it won no more conquests, is explained by the 
principle of repulsion in those whom it addressed ; 
that it won so many, is explained by the principle 
of power within itself. 

But a few words, more particularly, as to 
Gentile unbelief, though I cannot think that the 
argument requires any thing beyond these general 
considerations. ‘To a great extent, there is the 
best reason to believe that the proper evidence for 
our religion was unheeded by the Gentiles, particu- 
larly by the more cultivated portion. ‘The popular 
Gentile scheme of religious faith regarded every 
new religious pretension in precisely that light 
which debarred the evidence for Christianity from 


6 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


the benefit of any examination. The tolerance of 
Greek speculation and Roman politics placed the 
religions of all countries in some sort on a level. 
In their Pantheon there was a place for every new 
pretender, if he would only stand peaceably in his 
niche. Why be anxious about investigating any 
new claim, when, if it should prove unfounded, it 
was but one more fable exposed, if well-founded, 
one more deity enthroned? ‘He seemeth to be 
a setter forth of foreign gods,” was the careless 
comment of the populace of Athens, when Paul 
‘preached to them Jesus and the resurrection ” ; 
these names being apparently taken by them to 
indicate two divinities, a male and female. When, 
as it has been expressed, the different religions of 
the nations “ were held by the vulgar to be equally 
true, by the philosophers to be equally false, and by 
the politicians to be equally useful,” at what a dis- 
advantage did Christianity demand the serious and 
attentive hearing on which its reasonable reception 
had to depend. With all classes, and especially the 
higher, it had further to labor under the prejudice 
of having originated in Judea, the country, as the 
polite Roman historian, Tacitus, expresses it, of “a 
most despicable race of slaves,” a people who were 
a proverb among the nations for their low cultiva- 
tion, and illiberal and bitter narrowness. 

Under such circumstances, is it a question to be 
asked, why Christianity did not convert the hea- 
then world? Without a fair examination, at least 
without some examination, of its claims, of course 


CELSUS. 7 


nothing can command assent, whatever those claims 
may be; but, under such circumstances, it must 
needs have been that Christianity, even where it 
was offered, was constantly rejected without exam- 
ination, was merely turned away from with disdain. 
And even when by chance it had obtained some- 
thing that might be called a hearing, there was 
still a resource for the invincibly reluctant mind. 
The belief in magical arts, as competent to the pro- 
duction of supernatural effects, was a popular opin- 
ion of the day. ‘That theory was applied to the 
miracles of Jesus, when some explanation of them, 
different from that of his divine commission, was 
found necessary. ‘To the vulgar, who were indis- 
posed to admit his pretensions, it afforded a plausi- 
ble and sufficient explanation of his works; and if 
to the more enlightened it seemed itself a theory of 
questionable credit, still to many of them, when 
pressed with the evidence of the wonders which 
Jesus had wrought, it would be easier to assent to 
its truth, than to acknowledge him in the character 
he claimed. 

Celsus, on whose argument against Christianity 
fam to remark this evening, was an Epicurean 
philosopher of the second century. The precise 
time of his life and writings is not known. Lard- 
ner places him in the last years of Marcus Antoni- 
nus, who died in the year 180.* His work against 
Christianity, entitled, «The True Word,” is lost. 


“See Testimonies of Ancient Heathen Authors, Chap. 18. §1. Works, 
Vol. IV. (Edit. 4to.) pp. 118, 114. 


8 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


But the answer to it, in the next century, by Ori- 
gen, the most learned man of Christian antiquity, 1s 
still extant, and follows its course of argument with 
such careful detail, from step to step, and that with 
such large quotations, that, for all essential purposes, 
there is every appearance of our having the sub- 
stance of the treatise in our hands. Another reason 
for this opinion is, that, in not a few instances, the 
Christian father appears embarrassed in his at- 
tempts at reply, and could not but have been sensi- 
ble that his opponent had the advantage. He 
would not have produced what he was unable to 
answer, except under the impulse of an honest pur- 
pose to present the whole of his adversary’s case. 
Origen also himself says; ‘‘ That I may not appear 
purposely to pass by any portions because | have 
no answer, I have thought it best, according to 
my ability, to refute every thing proposed by Cel- 
sus, not so much observing the natural order of 
things, but that order which he has himself pur- 
sued.” * It is impossible to suppose that he would 
thus have invited the reader to observe that he took 
up all his adversary’s objections, and that he would 
have adopted an inconvenient arrangement in order 
to facilitate a comparison, and then not have pro- 
ceeded to fulfil his engagement. 

And here I will make a passing suggestion, for 
which no more fit opportunity may occur, upon the 
fact that so few writings of ancient opponents of 


* Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 41. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 357.) 


CELSUS, 9 


Christianity survive; the rest having been de- 
stroyed by the edicts of authority, or been suffered 
to perish through forgetfulness and neglect. It is 
exceedingly to be regretted that they do not sur- 
vive ; and it is impossible not to disapprove, as well 
as lament, the weak zeal which doomed any of 
them to destruction. It was a zeal according to 
any thing rather than knowledge. But there is 
no pretence whatever for the idea that they were 
condemned to this fate, because the safety of Chris- 
tianity was thought to require the suppression of 
their testimony against it. Some, no doubt, died 
that natural death which is the destiny of the great 
majority of books not approved by the prevailing 
sentiment. Not being esteemed after Christianity 
was in the ascendant, they were not in demand; 
not being in demand, they were not copied; not 
being copied, they, in course of time, disappeared. 

As far as they were positively proscribed, and their 
circulation discouraged, it is an altogether gratui- 
tous supposition that this was occasioned by a dis- 
trust of the soundness and sufficiency of the Christian 
evidences. A watchful father of a family in old 
times would be disinclined to see a copy of Celsus 
in the hands of his dependents, for the same reason 
that like displeasure might be occasioned at the 
present day by seeing a young reader engaged with 
Paine’s “ Age of Reason.” He would disapprove of 
the book, and perhaps forbid its use, or even go the 
length of destroying it, not because he regarded it 


as containing truth which he wished to bury in 
Vor. II. 2 


10 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


oblivion, but, on the contrary, because in his judg- 
ment it contained falsehoods which might be mis- 
chievous to immature and undiscerning minds. 
And so governments might condemn libraries to the 
flames. But why? Because they would use vio- 
lent means for the protection of what they under- 
stood to be falsehood? Certainly it might be so. 
The case is abstractly supposable. But the solution, 
which abstractly is the more natural and probable, 
is the opposite one; namely, that their act was the 
dictate of an honest zeal, however misguided. And, 
as to the works of adversaries of the Christian 
faith, the supposition, as a general account of what 
has occurred, is sufficiently refuted by the facts of 
the case. State power, in league with religious 
imposture, would have done its work better. Chris- 
tianity, if it had wanted confidence in its own truth 
and force, would not have allowed itself to be re- 
proached, as it has been in the later times, with 
calumnies of its early foes. It had it in its power 
to bury such testimony, and it would have done so. 
That those calumnies have survived, when there 
was power to obliterate the record of them, is a 
fact, of itself, going far towards their refutation. 
And, however much of infidel argument and cavil 
may have perished in the lapse of time, the amount 
of them, which has outlived it, condemns the hy- 
pothesis of any deliberate and strenuous endeavours 
for their suppression. 

One more remark, before I proceed to exhibit 
some of the contents of the work of this, the most 


CELSUS. 11 


famous of the early opponents of Christianity. 
We should distinctly understand for what it is, that 
the friend of our religion consults this argument of 
its enemy. We do not take it up expecting to 
find in it direct corroboration of our faith, positive 
testimony in support of what we believe to be true. 
Of course, we expect nothing of this kind, because 
it is the work of one who rejected our faith. If 
this were to be had from Celsus, then Celsus would 
have been a Christian. As it is, he is not our wit- 
ness, but a witness on the other side, whom we are 
cross-examining. Holding the position that he 
does, we are to expect to’ find him making the most 
of every doubt and objection that he could raise 
against our religion. He did not receive it for him- 
self. He had undertaken, in an elaborate treatise, 
to bring it into discredit with others. He had 
talents and culture qualifying him for such a task. 
He lived in the time of a bitter and protracted perse- 
cution of the Christians, when no pains were spared 
to bring to light every thing that might appear to 
their disadvantage and that of their religion. He 
had conversed freely with Jews; indeed, in part 
of his work he personates a Jew; whatever might 
be contributed from their stock to the success of his 
argument was at his command. 

That Celsus, then, should deal largely in hostile 
surmises and harsh assertions, is not a thing to sur- 
prise us. It ought to surprise us, if we found that 
he did not. To do it, belonged to the part he had 


undertaken ; nor are his mere suspicions and asser- 


12 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


tions, however plausible and confident in their show 
and tone, to have the slightest weight with us, pro- 
vided we have proof from any other quarter, — even 
if we cannot obtain it from himself, — showing 
them to be without foundation. But, on the other 
hand, his omissions and his admissions are of great 
value. Whatever he could find to say with a 
decent pretext against the religion of Jesus, it is 
safe to presume that he did say; in other words, 
what he has not said, by way of controverting the 
alleged facts on which it rested, it is safe to presume 
that he, with the peculiar advantages for informa- 
tion belonging to the early age in which he lived, 
knew that there was no decent pretext for saying. 
Whatever admission of facts favorable to the claims 
of Christianity, he could with any face have avoided 
making, it may be confidently assumed that he 
would have avoided making; in other words, such 
admissions as we find must have been wrested 
from him by the force of notorious truth. The more 
unwilling his testimony, the more unquestionable. 
Keeping these considerations in mind, let us pro- 
ceed toa brief survey of the principal contents of his 
work commented on by Origen. And I will divide 
the selection I have made from his remarks relating 
to the evidence for our religion, into two parts; the 
first consisting of objections to it, the second of 
whatever makes in its favor. It is of course only 
specimens that can be given of matter spread 
through the Christian father’s large work, divided — 
into eight books ; but it has been my conscientious 


CELSUS. 16 


purpose not to pass over any material topic of the 
adverse argument. ‘The order, in which the several 
topics were presented by Celsus, was very careless 
and inartificial (a fact of which Origen complains),* 
and not such as to give them, in combination, any 
additional force ; and, since to follow it would lead 
to inconvenient repetition, I will but present them in 
such succession as admits of their being distinctly 
viewed, arranging first however those which may 
be regarded as least material. 

1. Celsus objects to Christianity, that it addressed 
itself to the meaner and less instructed sort of 
people. “These,” says he, “are their institutions. 
‘ Let no learned man, no wise or prudent man come 
over tous. For these things we esteem evil. But 
if any one is ignorant, weak, foolish, let him come 
confidently.’ In declaring that such persons are 
worthy votaries of their God, they manifest that 
they are neither desirous nor able to attach to them- 
selves any others than foolish, low, stupid persons, 
slaves, weak women, and children.” + There is, of 
course, no argument in this. Christianity was 
true to its high pretensions, when it rebuked the 
false, pompous, and puerile philosophies of the day, 
and offered to the meanest a participation in the 
instructions of its own divine wisdom. But if it 
sought its disciples in the shambles of Athens, and 
among the purple-dyers of Thyatira, it had sought 
them and won them too, from the time of Paul’s own 


* Contra Cels. Lib. i §. 40. Opp. (Edit. Delarue) Tom. I. p. 357. 
t Ibid. Lib. iii. § 44. (pp. 475, 476.) Conf. §§ 18. 59. (pp. 458, 486.) 


14 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


preaching, in the Imperial household, and from the 
Platonic and Pythagorean schools. Origen’s calm 
and dignified answer leaves nothing to be added. 
A period or two from it are enough for our present 
purpose. “It is untrue,” he says, “ that such per- 
sons only as Celsus describes, are those whom the 
heralds of the divine doctrine desire to persuade. 
Such indeed the word does invite, that it may do them 
good. But it invites also others altogether unlike 
ETI Ee eee There is no harm in being truly learned. 
Nay, learning is a way to virtue, though not even 
the Greek sages would assign that rank to persons 
holding perverse doctrines. ..... And what doc- 
trines can be called good, except such as are true 
and lead to goodness? To be a wise man, isa good 
thing ; but to seem so only, is not good.” * 

2. Celsus objects to the claims of the Christian 
doctrine, that it is but a republication of old truths. 
He says; “It is common to other philosophers, 
and contains no weighty or novel lesson.” + And 
again; “The same things had been already bet- 
ter said among the Greeks, and that without 
threat or promise from God or his son.” {  Chris- 
tianity might have done good service, though it had 
been but a republication of old truths, provided it 
had taught them with a new authority, for want of 
which they had been hitherto discredited or ineffi- 
cacious; and if it were so, that the same things 


* Contra Cels. Lib. iii. § 49. (pp. 479, 480.) t Ibid. Lib. i. § 4. (p. 323.) 
ft Ibid. Lib. vi. § 1. (p. 629.) Conf. Lib. vii. § 58. (p. 735.) 


CELSUS. 15 


had been said among the Greeks “ without threat or 
promise from God or his son,” and now were said 
with those threats and promises, this difference was 
the most important difference conceivable, provided 
the alleged origin of such threats and promises was 
well authenticated. But, as to the existence of the 
fact affirmed, we can judge as well as Celsus. We 
have the writings of those philosophers in our hands, 
who are said to have anticipated the truths of 
Christianity ; and we know that the assertion was 
groundless. In the age of Celsus, when so little 
was known of the system of Christianity, except by 
those who had embraced it, it might do very well 
to represent it as but copying the trite systems of 
old opinion. But we perceive the assertion to be 
only the resort of a disingenuous controvertist, con- 
fident in his own boldness, and the ignorance of 
those whom he addressed. 

3. Celsus, in that large part of his work wherein 
he argues in the character of a Jew, maintains the 
usual Jewish argument respecting the inconsistency 
of language of the Old Testament, with facts of 
the New ‘Testament history, to which by Christian 
interpreters it was understood to relate. For in- 
stance, he insists; “The prophets say, that he 
who is to come will be a very powerful king, and 
lord of the whole earth, and of all nations and 
armies ;” * and again, in general, that “the pro- 
phecies correspond to innumerable others, more fitly 


* Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 29. (p. 412.) 


16 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


than to Jesus ;?? —a remark which Origen tells him, 
in the first place, that no Jew, who understood the 
tone and spirit of those prophecies, could have ever 
ventured to make; and, in the second, that it is 
of no force, unless fortified by a different kind of 
specification of prophecies, and of comments on 
their sense, from what Celsus has undertaken to 
give.” 

To pursue this topic would be to go out of 
our present way, to take up a part of the contro- 
versy, which I have already intimated my purpose 
to refer to another place in this series of remarks. 
Let it suffice to say for the present, that the topic 
belongs to a course of reasoning quite independent 
of that which discusses the proper, positive, direct 
evidence for the divine origin of our religion. Ques- 
tions respecting the application of Old ‘Testament 
language to New Testament facts, whether that 
application have been made correctly or not by 
Christians, are strictly questions of Biblical exposi- 
tion; and, whatever their importance may be, no 
aid towards their solution is to be borrowed from 
the age of Celsus. Whether, for instance, the lan- 
euage of Isaiah, “Who is this, that comes in dyed 
garments from Bozrah?” is a suitable description 
of Jesus of Nazareth, and, if not, whether the evi- 
dences of the Jewish or of the Christian religion 
are weakened by the want of correspondence, — 
these, without doubt, are proper subjects of inquiry, 


* Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 28. (p. 411.) Conf. Lib, i. § 50. (p. 366.) 
t See Vol. I. p. 274. 


CELSUS. 17 


but they are independent of the authority or opinion 
of the author whose writings are now under consid- 
eration. 

4. Celsus deals largely in the easy artifice of 
exciting prejudice against the Christian faith and 
its author by the repetition of such scurrilous fables 
of Jewish device, as a very feeble cunning knows 
how to employ when the best of causes is to be 
deprived of the benefit of a fair hearing. Celsus 
does not repeat the grossest slanders to which | 
have before had occasion to refer. They were not 
obsolete in his time, but it is probable that he not 
only gave them no credit, but had the good taste to 
perceive, that to mention them with approbation 
would but prejudice his own argument. But “he 
reproaches Jesus,” says Origen, “ with having had 
his birth in a Jewish village, of a mother in needy 
circumstances, who earned her living by spinning.” 
This may well have been, but he adds the de- 
scription of her being “the wife of a carpenter, by 
whom she was divorced, being convicted of adul- 
tery ;”* all which is evidently only such a gloss as 
enemies would be likely to put on the real facts of 
the Gospel history, and thus serves for nothing so 
much as for a confirmation of the general outline of 
the latter. Again; how ready was the expedient 
of such a representation as the following, to dis- 
courage inquiry into the claims of the Christian 
faith, and repel association with its professors, on 


* Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 28. (p. 346 ) 
Yous 3 


18 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


the part of timid men. ‘ ‘Those who offer an in- 
vitation to other mysteries,” says Celsus, ‘ make 
proclamation of this kind. ‘Whosoever has pure 
hands and is of wise discourse, whoever is clean 
from all fault, he whose conscience rebukes him with 
no evil, whose life has been well and justly passed, 
let them take part with us.’?..... But now let 
us hear whom the Christians invite. ‘ Whoever,’ 
say they, ‘is a sinner, whoever is foolish, whoever 
is inexperienced, whoever, to say all in one word, 
is merely a wretch, to him the kingdom of God is 
open.’ And whom do they mean bya sinner? Do 
they not mean the cheat, the thief, the burglar, the 
poisoner, the sacrilegious man?” * Once more, 
where the calumny referred to, which is not so 
much that of Celsus as of the Jews, has a peculiar 
interest, as leading to a remark of Origen, confirm- 
ing what I have before said, of the object and effect 
of unfounded representations which were put in 
circulation; ‘Celsus,” says Origen, “ proceeds in 
a manner like that of the Jews, who, when the 
Christian doctrine was first preached, circulated 
libels against it, pretending that the disciples 
sacrificed a child, and partook together of his flesh, 
and that, intent on deeds of darkness, they extin- 
guished their lights, and practised promiscuous 
lewdness. Which calumny, however absurd, for- 
merly prevailed much with many, fortifyng them 
in their opposition to the faith; and even up to this 


* Contra Cels. Lib. iii. § 59. (p. 486.) 


CELSUS. 19 


time it continues to deceive some, who, because of 
their belief in it, have such an antipathy to Chris- 
tians, that they refuse so much as to have any con- 
ference with them.” * Who does not own here the 
traces of a mere blind hatred, unscrupulous as to 
the means of its indulgence ? t 

5. The attempt is made by Celsus, in a variety 
of instances, to point out incongruities in the con- 
duct of Jesus, and in other particulars of the Gospel 
history. Let a few examples under this head con- 
tentus. Celsus asks, as to the sufferings undergone 
by Jesus, and said to have been foretold by hin, 
‘What god, or demon, or even prudent man, 
who foresaw such misfortunes impending over him, 
would not have avoided them, if that were pos- 
sible ? who would have rushed into them, thus fore- 
warned?” t a question which to us has no weight, 
in any other view, so great as in that of an evi- 
dence that the account of the disciples, from the 
first, had been, that Jesus foreknew the fate which 
eventually came upon him. Again says Celsus ; 
‘Tf he saw fit to submit to such evils, and met them 
through obedience to his father, it is plain that, he 
being a god, and consenting to what he endured, it 
could have occasioned him no inconvenience or 


* Contra Cels. Lib. vi. § 27. (p. 651.) 

t See Vol. I. pp. 287, 288. Athenagoras was contemporary with 
Celsus. The sole subject of his eloquent Legatio pro Christianis, 
addressed to the Emperors Antoninus and Commodus, is a defence of the 
sect against the three charges of atheism, cannibalism, and promiscuous 
impurity. 

t Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 17. (p. 403.) 


20 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


suffering.” * Again; “They who lived with him, 
who listened to his voice, who were attached to him 
as their master, when they saw him tortured and 
dying, did not die with him, or for him, nor did they 
show any contempt of suffering. On the contrary, 
they denied that they were his disciples. But now 
you offer yourselves to die with him.” + Again; « If 
he had really wished to display a divine power, he 
would have shown himself to his adversaries, to his 
judge, indeed to all men; ..... for he could no 
longer fear any man, when he had already died, 
and besides was, according to what you say, a 
god; nor could he have been sent for the pur- 
pose of keeping himself hidden.” t Once more; «If 
God, aroused like Jupiter in the play from a long 
sleep, wished to rescue the human race from evils, 
why did he send that spirit, of which you speak, into 
one corner of the earth? It would have been fit to 
infuse it alike into many bodies, and send it abroad 
to the whole world. The dramatist,” he adds, “ to 
excite a laugh in the theatre, describes Jupiter as 
awakening, and sending Mercury to the Athenians 
and Spartans. Do you not think that you do a 
more ridiculous thing in pretending that God sent 
his son to the Jews?” § I will not inquire whether 
there is more or less weight in such considerations ; 
but only suggest, that, whether more or less impor- 
tant, they derive no peculiar force from the circum- 


* Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 23. (p. 408.) + Ibid. § 45. (p. 420.) 
t Ibid. § 67. (p. 437.) § Ibid. Lib. vi. § 78. (p. 691.) 


CELSUS. OF 


stances under which they were proposed ; and that 
the disputant, who, living in the second century, was 
disposed to resort to such means of discrediting 
Christianity, could not have felt very confident of 
possessing any knowledge with which to confute 
the alleged facts of its history. 

6. Pressed by the direct miraculous evidence pre- 
sented by Jesus in behalf of the divine origin of 
his message, Celsus resorts to the easy and popu- 
Jar solution of his having learned secret arts, or 
charms, during a residence, in his youth, in Egypt. 
Thus in one place his words are, ‘“‘ While earning a 
poor living in Egypt, he there learned certain arts, 
greatly esteemed by the people of that country, and 
afterwards, returning home, he set up great preten- 
sion on account of them, and gave himself out to 
be a god.”* And again, Origen, reporting part of 
his argument in a general description, says, ‘“ Cel- 
sus, unable to look in the face the miracles which 
Jesus is recorded to have wrought, traduces them 
as enchantments.” + Whether Celsus was himself 
a believer in the actual potency of magical arts, or, 
when speaking of them without reference to this 
argument, would have represented them as only 
arts of cheating the senses of the spectator, may 
well admit of a question; the more so, as Origen 
suggests that his opponent may have been the same 
person with one of that name, who had_ before 


* Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 28. (p. 346.) Conf. § 38. (p. 356.) 
t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 48. (p. 422.) 


99 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


written against the reality of magic.* On this 
point Origen says; ‘“ Celsus, perceiving that the 
great things done by Jesus would be adduced by us, 
pretends to admit the truth of what is written con- 
cerning his cures, his resurrection, and his dividing 
a few loaves among a multitude, leaving a quantity 
of fragments, with other things which he thinks his 
Apostles have recorded in glowing colors, and then 
says, ‘Come, let us grant you that these things 
were really done.’ But he immediately goes on to 
confound them with the works of sorcerers, and of 
persons instructed in Egypt, who profess to do a 
variety of wonders; ..... and then he argues, 
‘Because they do such things, must we therefore 
esteem them sons of God? Shall we not rather 
Say, that they are the methods} of wicked and 
wretched men?’ You see then, that Celsus in a 
manner maintains that there is really such a thing as 
magic.” t 

Whether Celsus, however, really did maintain its 
reality, is, as has been remarked, not entirely clear, 
though the probability of this derives some confirma- 
tion from an assertion which Origen represents 
him to have made in another place, namely, that 
Christians had their power through the names and 
invocation of certain demons.§ And, as to his 


* Contra Cels. Lib. i, § 68. (p. 383.) 

t I choose here, for my translation, a word as equivocal as the original, 
émitydyeata, Which is what the rhetoricians call a futon 2ebes, media vox. 
It neither implies a charge of fraud, nor the contrary. 

t Ibid. (p. 382.) § Ibid. § 6. (p. 324.) 


CELSUS. 03 


general habits of belief on such subjects, another 
passage of Origen is in point. ‘ Now,” says he, 
let us see what Celsus says afterwards, where he 
alleges certain things from histories, themselves of 
an extraordinary nature, and near to incredible, but 
not disbelieved by him, if we may trust his word. 
First are the stories which he affirms concerning 
Aristeas of Proconnesus, of whom he thus speaks ; 
‘When, by divine power, he had disappeared from 
the view of men, he was afterwards seen again, and 
visited many parts of the world.” * Again; « Cel- 
sus, besides, speaks of Clazomenes, and having re- 
ferred to his history goes on; ‘ Do they not say that 
his soul often left his body, and wandered about 
without it?’” + Again; ‘Celsus speaks too of Cle- 
omedes of Astypaleea, who,” he says, “ when shut up 
in a chest, held it fast; but when it was opened he was 
not there, having escaped by some divine power.” t 

The truth, on the whole, appears to be that Cel- 
sus had no very settled opinion on the subject of 
magical powers, either for or against ; though, from 
the general skeptical habits of his mind, he would 
have been disinclined to a belief in them, as well as 
in any thing else extraordinary, when viewed as a 
mere abstract question. From all that has come 
down to us respecting him, he seems to have been 
one of that class of persons, who have no clear and 
decided leaning to any opinion, true or false, but 
who are especially indisposed to believe any thing 


“ Contra Cels. Lib. iii, § 26. (pp. 462, 463.) 
t Ibid. § 32. (p. 467.) } Ibid. § 33. (p. 468.) 


DAs PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


unusual, or which would disturb the course of things 
around them, or invade the habits of their own 
lives. When the question was only respecting 
magical arts, he viewed that pretension with in- 
credulity. But, when the greater question was 
agitated respecting the miraculous works of Jesus, 
the admission of the former hypothesis, to serve the 
turn, was to him preferable to the admission of the 
latter. Atall events, one thing is clear, that Celsus 
knew that among the persons for whom he was 
arguing there were those who were so well con- 
vinced of the reality of the mighty works of Jesus as 
actual phenomena, that some other solution besides 
that of their being actual divine interpositions need- 
ed to be proposed, in order to prevent their being 
satisfied by the evidence, and embracing the religion. 

7. Celsus in one place makes a suggestion which 
seemed of grave importance to the adversaries of 
our faith, till its true import had been properly 
expounded. ‘After this,” says Origen, ‘“ Celsus 
says, that ‘some believers, as if under a suicidal 
impulse of inebriation, change the Gospel from 
the frst text thrice, four times, yea, many times, 
and make it over, so as the better to reply to op- 
ponents.’” * ‘This loose and general charge of an 
incautious and petulant adversary has no weight, 
taken in any sense, when opposed to that of the pos- 
itive argument for the authenticity and integrity of 
our Gospels, which I have presented in a previous 


* Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 27. (p. 411.) 


CELSUS. 25 


part of this discussion. * Origen scems to lay no 
stress upon it, nor to entertain any apprehension 
of its being seriously urged; but dismisses it, after 
merely saying, in three periods, that he knows not 
who can be meant as having changed the Gospel, ex- 
cept certain unacknowledged sectaries and half-be- 
levers, for whom Christianity was in no sort respon- 
sible. It is probable that Celsus had observed the 
difference of contents between the books of Mat- 
thew, Mark, Luke and John, and chose to put this 
construction, evidently false, upon the existence of 
that difference ; in which case his remark is another 
corroboration, if more were needed, of the existence 
of those books, marked by their present character- 
istics, in his time. It is important also to ob- 
serve, that, whatever he intended to affirm, he af- 
fumed at most of “some disciples,”’ which is a vir- 
tual acquittal of the body. And what is more 
important yet, is, that in a work, of which the tri- 
umphant argument, —if such an argument could 
have been plausibly sustained, — would have been, 
that the records of the ministry of Jesus and of the 
first preachers of his religion were then of recent 
origin, we find throughout no pretence nor insinua- 
tion of such a charge having been ventured on. 

We have thus seen what topics of argument it 
was, that Celsus, a man of distinguished ability and 
knowledge, found in the second century with which 
to assail the Christian faith. Let me recapitulate, 


*See Vol. I. Lectures IV. & V. 
Vou. II, 4 


26 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


in a few words, before proceeding to observe what 
positive confirmation his writings offer to that faith. 
His great grounds of objection to it are, that it ad- 
dressed itself to the meaner and less instructed sort 
of people; that it is, according to his statement, 
but a republication of old truths; that it does not 
exhibit the correspondence, asserted by its adher- 
ents, with the prophetical writings of the Old Tes- 
tament; that it is subject, or rather its disciples are 
subject, to certain opprobrious charges ; that there 
are incongruities in the conduct of Jesus, and in 
other circumstances of the Gospel history ; that the 
wonderful works of Jesus, if actually performed, 
were performed by magical arts; and, finally, if the 
passage containing the remark has been understood 
correctly, that the Gospel had suffered some altera- 
tion, as it existed in the hands of some disciples. 
These objections, one or two of them insignificant, 
and the rest not sustained in point of fact to any 
significant extent, were the best that an acute and 
accomplished adversary found to adduce at that 
early period, when, if the essential facts alleged 
for the Gospel had not rested on an unassailable 
basis of truth, the obvious resource of infidelity 
would have been to collect evidence to disprove 
them. 

On the other hand, what do we find in Celsus to 
corroborate the evidence of our faith 

In particular, we find ample testimony to two im- 
portant points; the one, that the facts of the Gos- 
pel history, which Christians, in the age of Celsus, 


CELSUS. Dy 


averred to be true, and which they preached, trav- 
elled, and endured hardships, indignities, and death 
in maintenance of, were the same which Christians 
of the later ages have received as accompanying the 
introduction and promulgation of their faith; the 
other, that the records of those facts, in the Gospels 
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the other 
books of the New Testament, were, in the days of 
Celsus, in the hands of Christians, as they are now, 
and enjoyed among them the same undisputed 
credit and authority; the latter, a point which 
every one who has considered its relations sees to 
be of the very highest importance, and one which, 
it is scarcely going too far to affirm, might be 
satisfactorily proved from the writings of Celsus 
alone. 

First; as to the facts of the Gospel history, as un- 
derstood in Celsus’s time, considered independently 
of the writings which recorded them. And while I 
name a few of those which this author has speci- 
fied, I ask that it may be observed what a perfect 
reply this specification by him, considering the time 
when he lived, affords to the scheme of the allego- 
rists ; that is, of those who have pretended that the 
accounts of Jesus were but allegorical representa- 
tions, or the embodying, in a fabulous character, of 
fancies floating in the popular mind ;—a theory, 
which in order to adopt, it would seem that one 
must be utterly ignorant, I will not say of the his- 
tory of Christianity, but of the history of unbelief. 
It has been said, not at all too strongly, that “we 


28 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


have in Celsus, in a manner, the whole history of 
Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels.” * «It is but a 
few years,” says he, endeavouring to disparage the 
religion for its recent rise, “since Jesus introduced 
this doctrine, and came to be esteemed by Chris- 
tians the Son of God.” + He refers to the reputed 
miraculous birth of Jesus, his mother being a virgin, 
espoused to a carpenter, and dwelling in a Jewish 
village; f to the asserted visit of the Magi, to the 
plot of Herod against his life, and the slaughter of 
the children of Bethlehem; § to the appearance of 
the dove at his baptism; || to his being habitually 
accompanied, as Celsus phrases it, by ‘ten or 
eleven mean persons, vile publicans and sailors” ; I 
to the miracles ascribed to him, such, he says, as 
curing diseases, raising the dead, feeding multitudes 
with a few loaves, of which a quantity was left ; ** 
to his being called on in the temple, for a sign from 
heaven ; tT to the voice from heaven, on the moun- 
tain of transfiguration ; {ft to his being betrayed by 
one disciple, and deserted by the rest;§§ to his 
being asserted to have foreseen and foretold all that 


*Lardner. Testimonies of Ancient Heathens. Chap. 18. § 12. (Vol. 
IV. p. 144.) 

t Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 26. (p. 344.) 

f Ibid. § 28, (p. 346;) Conf. § 32, (p. 349 — 3503) § 39, (p. 356;) § 69, 
(p. 383, 384.) Lib. vi. § 73. (p. 687.) 


§ Ibid. Lib. i. § 58. (p. 373.) || Ibid. § 41. (p. 357.) 
I Ibid. § 62. (p. 376;) Conf. Lib. ii. § 46. (p. 421.) 
** Ibid. Lib. i. § 68. (p. 382.) tt Ibid. § 67. (p. 382.) 


{t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 72. (p. 441.) 
§§ Ibid. § 9, (p. 3925) § 20, (p. 4055) § 21. (p. 407.) 


CELSUS. 29 


befell him;* to his praying, that, if possible, the 
cup might pass from him; to the denial of him by 
Peter; { to the reproaches cast upon him while on 
the cross ; § to his drinking the gall and vinegar ; || 
to the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the 
reed for a sceptre ; 1 to the blood that flowed from 
his pierced side ; ** to the darkness and earthquake 
at his death ; tt to his alleged resurrection from the 
dead, and to some of the circumstances of his re- 
appearance, even to the showing of his hands and 
his feet.{{ I am not of course bringing Celsus for- 
ward as a direct witness to the reality of these 
facts but as an indirect witness to them, through 
his direct testimony to the other fact of their con- 
stituting the established belief of Christians of his 
day ; of their being identified in the minds of those 
Christians with the history of their faith; of their 
making part of that message to the world, the truth 
of which Christians were every where asserting 
at the hazard of their lives. 

But secondly, — what is of still greater impor- 
tance, — Celsus the heathen is a most express and 
unsuspicious witness to that cardinal point in the 
Christian evidences, the genuineness of the New 
Testament records. As Chrysostom well says, 


“Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 13, (p. 898;) § 15, (p. 401;) § 17, 
(p. 403;) § 18. (p. 404.) 


t Ibid. § 24. (p. 409.) t Ibid. § 18. (p. 404.) 
§ Ibid. § 35. (p. 415.) || Ibid. § 37. (p. 416.) 
1 Ibid. § 34. (p. 415.) ** Ibid. § 36. (p. 416.) 


tt Ibid. § 55. (p. 429.) ff Ibid. §§ 55, 70. (pp. 429, 440.) 


30 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


‘‘ Celsus, and Porphyry after him, are our sufficient 
witnesses to the antiquity of our books, for certainly 
they have not opposed what was written after their 
time.”* “The Jew in Celsus,” says Origen, 
‘proceeds thus; ‘I could say many things, and 
that truly, concerning the affairs of Jesus, not ac- 
cording with those written by his disciples. But I 
purposely abstain.’” + The boast of what he could 
do, but forbears to do, will pass for what it may be 
thought worth; but the words show that, in the 
writer’s time, there were narratives of Jesus’s 
ministry well known, and understood to be written 
by disciples of his, a designation of those writers, 
that must be taken in the strict sense in which we 
commonly apply it, as the community in general 
are by Celsus constantly called by the names 
Christians and believers. Says Origen (who, let it 
be remembered, makes these suggestions inciden- 
tally, — he is not urging the argument with which 
We are now engaged), ‘“ ‘The Jew in Celsus says, 
‘These things we allege out of your own writings, 
in addition to which we need no other testimony.’ ” { 
There were, then, certain writings, received among 
Christians, to assail which was to assail what they 
admitted to be of paramount authority, and coinci- 
dent with the credit of their faith. Again says 
Origen; “Celsus quoted many things from the 


* Chrysost. in Epist. Prior. ad Corinth. Hom. vi. Tom. III. p. 277. 
(Edit. Eton.) 


t Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 13. (p. 398.) + Ibid. § 74. (p. 442.) 


CELSUS. be 


Gospel according to Matthew, as the star that rose 
at the birth of Jesus, and other wonderful events.” * 
Again; ‘“Celsus maintains, that the genealogists 
of Jesus were extravagant, in pretending to trace 
him to the first man and to the line of Jewish 
kings.” + Here is a distinct reference to the intro- 
ductions of both Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s. 
Celsus speaks of composers of genealogies, and 
not of one only; and Luke only has carried his up 
to Adam, the first man. Celsus in many instances 
uses the very language of the New ‘Testament. 
‘The Christians,” he says, ‘‘ have such precepts as 
this; ..... ‘If one smite thee on the right cheek, 
turn to him the other.’”{ He asks, ‘“ why Chris- 
tians will not worship demons ;” and replies, “‘ Be- 
cause they are taught, ‘it is impossible to serve more 
than one master.’”§ He refers to Jesus’s predic- 
tions concerning false prophets ; || to his prohibitions 
of worldly anxiety, with the illustrations drawn from 
the care of Providence for the lilies and the 
ravens; 1. to his comparison of the difficulty of a 
rich man’s entering the kingdom of heaven to that 
of a camel’s going through a needle’s eye.** ‘To 
the sepulchre of Jesus,” he says, ‘there are said to 
have come two angels, by some; by others, only 


* Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 34. (p. 352.) 


t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 32. (p. 413.) t Ibid. Lib. vii. § 58. (p. 735.) 
§ Ibid. § 68. (p. 742.) Conf. Lib. viii. §§ 2, 3, 15. (pp. 745. 752.) 
|| Ibid. Lib. ii. § 53. (p. 427.) 1 Ibid. Lib, vii. § 18. (p. 706.) 


** Tbid. Lib. vi. § 16. (p. 641.) 


ae PAGAN OBJECTIONS, 


one ” ;*— a remarkable exactness, for Matthew and 
Mark speak of one only, while Luke and John 
mention two, a fact which Origen immediately 
adduces, in explanation of his statement. Once 
more, though this detail might be much farther 
pursued ; Origen, in replying to Celsus’s remarks on 
what seemed to him the unbecoming humiliation of 
Jesus, says, “Whence did you learn these facts, 
Celsus, but from the Gospels? so that, instead of 
MOMINO I! 21.45% you ought to admit at once the 
frankness of the writers, and the magnanimity of 
him, who voluntarily submitted to such indignities 
for the good of men.” t 

In regard, then, to this last division of our survey 
of the work of Celsus, let the following facts be 
borne in mind. He speaks of books written by dis- 
ciples of Jesus, without any intimation of his so 
much as suspecting them to have had any other ori- 
gin. He refers to numerous statements concerning 
the actions and discourses of Jesus, all of which 
are found in our present Gospels. He makes nu- 
merous objections to accounts received by Chris- 
tians respecting the Saviour ; and those accounts are 
all without exception now read in the same books ; 
nor does he hint at any received narrative concerning 
him, but what is therein contained. And he assails 
their contents, under an evident sense of their pos- 
sessing such authority with Christians, that an injury 


* Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. v. § 56. (p. 621.) 
| Ibid. Lib. ii, § 34, (p. 415.) 


CELSUS. 33 


to their credit was a vital injury to Christianity 
itself. ‘Than this indirect evidence, derived from 
that early age, no evidence for the genuineness and 
original authority of our sacred books could well 
be stronger. 

There is good evidence in Celsus of the early, 
rapid, and wide, though harassed and obstructed, 
propagation of the faith; but on such collateral 
points, however interesting, I will not fatigue you 
with citations. We have seen what sort of argu- 
ments it was that Celsus was able to collect against 
Christianity. We ought not to forget with what 
advantages he undertook a work, in which he was 
destined so signally to fail. His abilities and learn- 
ing, as is apparent from the fragments, were such 
as to make him an effective champion of any cause 
which had strength of its own. He professes to 
have used particular diligence to acquaint himself 
with the affairs of Christians. He had read the 
books of Moses, and perhaps the whole of the Old 
Testament; and of the historical books, at least, of 
the New, we have seen how well he was possessed. 
He had discoursed at large with Jews, acquaint- 
ing himself with the points in controversy between 
them and the new sect, and also with the calum- 
nies by which they had aimed to obstruct its rise ; 
and the motives, whatever they were, which induced 
a person of his consideration to engage in the dis- 
pute, would influence him also to prosecute it with 
the best devotion of his powers. 

Vout. Il. 5 


34 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


What | have proposed to say respecting the bear- 
ing of his work, at this day, on the evidences of our 
religion, particularly on that all-important point of 
them, the authenticity of the Gospels, I now conclude 
with a few sentences of two judicious writers, which 
I take from the close of Dr. Lardner’s chapter upon 
Celsus, and which embrace thoughts that could not 
be better expressed. 

« Whilst,” says Dr. Doddridge, ‘“ from his quo- 
tations from, and references to, the books of the 
New Testament, Celsus argues sometimes in a very 
perverse and malicious manner, he still takes it for 
granted, as the foundation of his argument, that 
whatever absurdity could be fastened upon any 
words or actions of Christ, recorded in the Evan- 
gelists, it would be a valid objection against Chris- 
tianity; thereby in effect assuring us, not only that 
such a book did really exist, but that it was univer- 
sally received by Christians in those times as credi- 
ble and divine. Who can forbear adoring the 
depths of divine wisdom, in laying such a firm 
foundation for our faith in the Gospel history, in the 
writings of one who was so inveterate an enemy to 
it, and so indefatigable in his attempts to overthrow 
it?” <“Celsus,” says the anonymous author of 
“The Evidence of the Resurrection cleared up,” 
“lived at no great distance from the apostolic age, 
at a time when all religions were tolerated but the 
Christian, when no evidence was stifled, no books 
destroyed, but the Christian. And yet Celsus 
labored under the same want of evidence as modern 


CELSUS. 35 


unbelievers, and had only the Gospel to search (as 
Origen more than once observes) for evidence 
against the Gospel. A strong proof that there never 
had been any books of any credit in the world, 
that questioned the Gospel facts, when so spiteful 
and so artful an adversary as Celsus made no use 
of them.” 

In my next Lecture, which will relate to the 
Pagan controversy in the third century, I shall 
speak particularly of the writings of Minucius Felix, 
Porphyry, and Arnobius. 


LEGTUREVGMs 


GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. 


[continvuzED. ] 


My last Lecture was devoted to an account of the 
argument against Christianity by Celsus the Epicu- 
rean, in the second century, as it has descended to us 
incorporated in the reply of the Christian father, 
Origen; an argument on the whole more important 
than any other of the same class which has been be- 
queathed to us by antiquity, whether we consider 
the time to which it belongs (seventy or eighty years 
only after the death of the last survivor of the apos- 
tles), the extent and variety of its topics, or the emi- 
nence of its author and his opponent. I am this 
evening to give a brief account of the state of the 
controversy at three different later periods, bringing 
it down to the end of the third century, or two cen- 
turies from the death of John. 

Early in the third century, that 1s, contempora- 
neously with Origen, lived the Christian father 
Marcus Minucius Felix, an eminent professional 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. 37 


pleader at Rome, before, and probably after, his con- 
version to Christianity. He wrote a defence of the 
faith, still extant, in the form of a dialogue between 
Cecilius Natalis, a heathen, and Octavius Janu- 
arius, a disciple. Cecilius urges his objections ; 
Octavius replies to them; and at the close Cacilius 
professes himself convinced, and desirous to enrol 
himself as a believer. ‘The piece has great merit ; 
and the candor, with which the Christian argument 
is urged, creates in the reader a strong persuasion, 
that under the character of Ceccilius the author has 
given a fair representation of the current heathen 
objections of the day; besides that, writing for the 
conviction of Gentile unbelievers, it is reasonable, 
independently of any presumption of his honesty, to 
suppose that he would be at pains to acquaint him- 
self with the efficient grounds of their unbelief, and 
state them substantially in their full force. If he 
should pass over what was mainly relied upon by 
the other party, it could not but be manifest to him 
that his work would be but labor lost. 

But the plea of Cecilius is nothing but an ap- 
peal to prejudice. There is nothing in it that de- 
serves the name of reasoning upon the merits of the 
question ; and as far as it may serve us for a speci- 
men of the methods in use at that day to prevent 
the increase of the number of Christians, it shows 
that these consisted in merely exciting odium 
against their opinions and their persons. Cecilius, 
after a long train of general remark upon the diffi- 
culty of arriving at religious truth, the great variety 


38 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


of speculations concerning it, and the arrogance of 
any who pretend to profess it, especially to the ex- 
clusion of others, declares it to be the only prudent 
course to follow the religion of one’s ancestors, and 
then launches out into a copious panegyric upon the 
systems of Gentile superstition, and the constancy 
with which they had been adhered to by their vota- 
ries.* This leads him to speak of the Christians, 
whom he introduces by saying, that he ‘cannot 
endure men of such audacity ..... that they seek 
to overthrow or to weaken so ancient, so useful, so 
salutary a faith.” ‘Is it not horrible,” he asks, ‘that 
men of a miserable, lawless, and desperate faction 
should thus assail the gods; men who, collecting 
from the lowest dregs of the people weak and unin- 
structed persons, and credulous women, who fall 
into their snares through the facility of their sex, 
band together a mob in a profane conspiracy, and 
in nightly assemblies, solemn fasts, and unnatural 
feasts, sanction their compact with atrocious rites ° 
A set of people they are, artful, and shunning the 
light ; in public they are dumb; in corners they are 
garrulous; they abhor the temples as they would 
funeral piles ; they despise the gods; they ridicule 
our sacred solemnities. Wretches that they are, 
themselves in rags, they pretend to look down on 
the honors and purple of our priests. With aston- 
ishing folly and incredible arrogance, they defy 
present suffermg, but tremble at that which is un- 


* Minucii Felicis Octavius. §§ 1—7. pp, 1—69. (Edit. Lugd, Bat. 
1709.) | 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. 39 


certain and future ; and, while they fear to die after 
death, death itself they do not fear, —a fallacious 
hope so soothes their dread with the image of after 
recompenses.”’ * 

This is but vague railing. What is more specific 
follows. ‘At last,” says Cecilius, ‘‘as wickedness 
is always fruitful, the corruption of their manners 
increasing day by day, the impious brotherhood 
observe everywhere their shocking orgies. Such 
a nuisance should be execrated and extirpated. 
They know each other by secret signs and marks, 
and love each other almost before a mutual recog- 
nition; a certain religion of license every where 
UbMesitheri 4s, a9 I hear that, by force of some 
stupid opinion, — I know not what,— they adore a 
consecrated head of that vilest of cattle, the ass; a 
religion well corresponding to such morals as theirs.” 
Others, he says, bring against them a charge of an 
atrocious kind of worship, which he specifies, but 
which I cannot repeat. ‘1 know not whether this 
is false,” he goes on, “ but suspicion naturally at- 
taches to their secret and nocturnal assemblies.” 
Then comes that fable of his, to which I referred 
on a former occasion, + of their killing a child with 
various ceremonies, licking its blood, and tearing it 
limb from limb, at the initiation of novices; on 
which he remarks, that ‘it is a story as offensive, 
as it is well known.” And lastly, in this cool enu- 
meration of their offences, he adds, “ As to their 


“ Min. Fel. Octavius. § 8. (pp. 70—89.) + See Vol. I. p. 288. 


AO PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


feasts, the thing is notorious; it is everywhere 
talked of, ocx On a set day they meet to keep 
it, with all their children, sisters, matrons, asso- 
ciates of both sexes and of every age, and then, 
when the banquet is over, the lights are quenched, 
and they practise promiscuous impurity.” * 

Such were his assertions. What kind of proof had 
he? Common report, he says; but also something 
else; and what was that? It was such reasoning 
upon appearances and probabilities as he presents 
in his closing remark on this topic, immediately 
following what I have read. “I pass over many 
things,” he says, ‘“‘on set purpose. For these, 
which I have already mentioned, are too many, all 
or most of which are confirmed as to their truth by 
the affected obscurity which this religion observes. 
For why do they so strive to conceal their worship, 
when what is honorable delights in publicity, only 
vice and crime love the darkness? Why have they 
no altars, no temples, no images, why do they not 
speak boldly, and meet openly, unless their worship 
and doctrine are things to be punished and to be 
ashamed of?” ‘Thus it was, that the poor Chris- 
tians, driven by their persecutors into hiding 
places for the celebration of their worship, had the 
very resource of their distress and fears turned into 
a weapon of detraction, and a justification of the 
injuries which drove them thither. 

What remains of the plea of Cecilius treats three 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 9. (pp. 90—101.) _ + Ibid. § 10. (p. 101.) 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. A] 


topics. First, he finds fault with the Christian and 
Jewish notions of the divine nature and character. 
“Whence, what, and where,” he asks, “is that 
single, solitary, forlorn divinity, whom no free race, 
no state, at least no Roman doctrine, knows any 
thing about? Only the wretched rout of Jews 
recognises a sole Deity ; and they adore him with 
pomp and ceremony, with temples, altars, and vic- 
tims, —a God so without force and power, that he 
is himself, with his nation, enslaved to the Romans. 
But the Christians, what monstrous follies do they 
fabricate in respect to him! That God of theirs, 
whom they can neither show to others, nor see 
themselves, they pretend makes diligent inquisition 
into the characters of all men, their acts, even their 
words, nay, their secret thoughts. They will have 
it that he goes about every where, yet is every 
where present as if stationary. They will have 
him to be restless, officious, even impudently inquisi- 
tive. At all men’s doings, they say, he stands 
by; in all places he is roaming ; while thus scattered 
so widely, it is impossible he should benefit indi- 
viduals, or, occupied with single cares, should take 
care of the whole.” * 

The objector next addresses himself to find flaws 
in the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, and 
the opinions of disciples concerning the final catastro- 
phe of human things ; and is at pains to point out cir- 
cumstantial incongruities in the opinion of a revivi- 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 10. (pp. 104 — 108.) 
Vou, if: 6 


AQ PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


fication of the body.* And lastly, with a strange 
inconsistency with the tenor of his previous com- 
plaints, he upbraids Christians with their indiffer- 
ence even to innocent pleasures and festivities, as 
well as to pain. ‘You have to bear,” he says, 
“threats, injuries, tortures. You not only adore, 
but you endure, the cross. You are brought to 
those flames in this life, which you predict as 
an object of dread in the next. Where 1s that God 
of yours, who can help the risen, but has no aid for 
the living? Do not the Romans, without his assist- 
ance, conquer, reign, enjoy the wealth of the whole 
world, and hold dominion over you, while you, living 
in suspense and anxiety, abstain even from irre- 
proachable pleasures? You do not frequent the 
spectacles; you do not take part in the games; no 
public feast witnesses your presence; ..--. you do 
not wreathe your heads with garlands; you do not 
indulge in the luxury of perfumes; ointments you 
only use at funerals.” He concludes, by saying, that 
« for such uninstructed, unpolished, and unmannered 
persons, it is enough to look at what is beneath 
their feet. When they are not competent to esti- 
mate the practices of civil life, still less is it theirs 
to treat of the mysteries of divinity. If they will 
philosophize, they will do well to adopt the maxim 
of that prince of sages, Socrates, whose well-known 
reply, when interrogated respecting heavenly things, 
was, ‘ Whatever is above us, to us is nothing.’” + 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 11. (pp. 108 — 117.) 
t Ibid. §§ 12, 13. (pp. 119 — 128.) 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. AS 


This is the argument against Christianity, or 
rather against adopting Christianity, which one, 
who knew of what he was affirming, put into the 
mouth of a polished heathen at the beginning of 
the third century. I am greatly tempted to make 
free extracts from the admirable answer to it which 
follows ; but that does not belong so much to our 
subject, and I must forbear, so as not to encroach 
on the space devoted to other topics. “It is a 
natural impulse,” says Octavius, the Christian in- 
terlocutor, in his reply, “to hate whomsoever you 
fear, to molest, if you can, whomsoever you 
dread. So the powers of evil, who are hostile to 
us Christians and our faith, occupy men’s minds, 
and shut up the accesses to their bosoms, so that 
men hate us before they know us, and are prevented 
from coming to that knowledge of us, which would 
lead them either to imitate us, or at least to with- 
hold their condemnation. How unjust it is to pass 
judgment without knowledge or inquiry, as you are 
doing, learn from my own case, who have occasion 
to repent of formerly having done the same. For 
I was once as you are now, and in my blindness 
and dulness entertained the same persuasions ; as 
that Christians worshipped monstrous shapes, de- 
voured the flesh of infants, and took part in inces- 
tuous debauchery ; nor did J reflect that such stories 
were constantly circulated without proof or inquiry, 
nor consider the striking fact, that in so long a time 
no accomplice in such crimes had come forward to 
inform against them, when he would thus have 


AA, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


secured, not only pardon, but reward. ..... And 
when I had any of those people charged with 
sacrilege, with incest, even with parricide to defend,” 
—here the writer refers to his professional practice 
in the courts, —“ I hardly thought it worth while 
to hear what account they would give of themselves, 
but sometimes, through very pity, was harsh and 
stern with them, insisting that they should confess 
their crimes, that by that means they might save 
their lives; thus tormenting them, as I now know, 
with an examination, directed not to bring out the 
truth, but to extort a falsehood. And if any weak 
man, overborne and subdued by misfortune, could 
be brought to deny that he was a Christian, | 
showed him all favor, considering that, when he 
had abjured that name, he had, by the denial, as it 
were, expiated all his misdeeds. Do you not see, 
that as I felt and acted then, so you are feeling and 
acting now hpewonny By a prompting of the powers 
of evil, I say it is, that that false rumor was origi- 
nated and is spread. Thence it is, that you say 
you hear that the head of an ass with us is an object 
of religious veneration. For who so foolish as to 
adore such an object? Who so much more foolish 
as to believe that it is adored, unless he is prepared 
to adore it himself?” * 

Further on, he says, “I should like once to see 
the man, who affirms, or really believes, that we 
Christians are initiated with the murder and _ blood 


* Min. Fel, Octavius. §§ 27, 28, (pp. 283 — 290.) 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. A5 


of an infant. Do you think it possible, that sucha 
soft and delicate body could be willingly exposed to 
mortal wounds?..... No one, when he thinks of it, 
can credit it, except the man who could do it.’ * 
And in another place, “As to that festival of im- 
purity of which you spoke, this again is a demoni- 
acal fabrication, to rob us of the honor due to our 
chastity, and expose us instead to the abhorrence 
that should visit shameless infamy; and this to the 
end of estranging men from us through disgust at 
our bad repute, before they can look into the truth. 
And as to this charge, that very Fronto, to whom 
you appeal for it,”?— the preceptor of Marcus An- 
toninus is supposed here to be meant, —“ did by 
no means affirm its truth as a witness, but only 
threw it out as a loose aspersion in his character of 
a declaimer.”’ + 

Then follows, —in that tone of generous confi- 
dence in the truth of what is spoken, which can 
scarcely be counterfeited, —a general vindication 
and assertion of the character of Christians, t 
closing with an eloquent passage, which I cannot 
forbear to quote, though my remarks on this writer 
have already exceeded the proportion of this Lecture 
which | had appropriated to them. “Do you pre- 
tend that we conceal our worship, because we have 
no temples nor altars? What image should we 
erect to God, when, rightly considered, man himself 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 30. (pp. 305, 306.) t Ibid. § 31. (p. 322.) 
} Ibid. (pp. 327 — 336.) 


A6 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


is his image? What temple need we build to him, 
when the universe, fashioned by his hand, is not 
large enough to enclose him? ..... Is he not 
better set up in our minds, consecrated in the depth 
of our bosoms’? Shall I present victims to the 
Lord, which he bestowed for my use, and so throw 
him back his gift? It were ungrateful. The ac- 
ceptable offering is, an honest soul, a pure mind, a 
clear conscience. He who preserves his innocence, 
worships God; he who observes justice, sacrifices 
to God; he who abstains from artifice, performs a 
service of propitiation; he who rescues a fellow 
man from danger, immolates a costly victim. ‘These 
are our sacrifices, these our holy ritual; thus he 
among us is the most religious man, who is the most 
upright. But, you say, we worship a God, whom 
we cannot show to others, nor see ourselves. Yes, 
because we can perceive and feel him, but cannot 
see him, therefore we believe that he is God. For 
in his works, and in all the agencies of his world, 
we trace his ever-present efficacy, in thunder, in 
lightning, in clear weather. Do not be surprised 
not to see God. Every thing is agitated and borne 
on by the wind, yet the wind is no object of sight. 
By means of the sun it is that we see, but we can- 
not look into the sun. It repels and disables the 
vision, and, if you gaze long, the sight is quenched. 
What? will you look at the maker of the sun, at 
the fountain of light, when you avert your eye from 
his lightnings, when you hide away from the rever- 
beration of his thunder? Will you look upon God 


DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. AT 


with the outward eyes, when you cannot so much 
as see or apprehend that spirit of your own, by which 
you live and speak? But God, you say, is ignorant 
of the deeds of men; and, dwelling in heaven, can 
neither compass the whole, nor take note of indi- 
viduals. O man, you err and are deceived. For 
from what place is God far distant, when all the 
regions of heaven and earth, through the creation’s 
utmost bounds, are known to God, and full of him, 
and when he is not only nearer than aught else to 
us, but pervades our very being? Consider the sun 
once more. It is fixed in the sky, but is, so to 
speak, scattered over all lands, and nowhere is its 
brightness eclipsed. How much more may this be 
said of God, the maker of all things, the inspector 
of all. From him nothing can be hidden ;_he 1s pres- 
ent in darkness, he is present in our thoughts, as 
much as in other retreats. We not only act under 
him, but, as I may almost say, we lve with 
Hii)? * 

Thus could write one of that much disparaged 
class of authors, the early Christian fathers, and he 
certainly not one of the most eminent of their num- 
ber. Such notions of religion, of the Deity, of 
duty, shining through the spiritual darkness of that 
self-bewildered and cheated age, are themselves no 
less than a token of the divine origin of the faith 
from which they sprang, though it is not in that 
light that we are now regarding them. ‘The writer 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 32. (pp. 336 — 343.) 


Ag PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


passes to an exposition, — much of it, in rhetorical 
force and beauty, worthy of the best Latin age, — 
of his views of the resurrection, of the future life, 
of the last catastrophe of human things, and finally, 
recurring to a topic before treated, of the actual 
character and becoming course of Christians; of 
whom he says, “ Your prisons are crowded with 
your own people, while of ours no one is ever seen 
there, except as arraigned for his religion, or else 
some apostate from it.””* With these topics most 
of the remainder of his treatise is occupied; but I 
have already presented what is most material to our 
purpose, and we have not time to accompany him 
further. 

Later in the same century with Minucius Felix, 
lived Porphyry, a professor and teacher of what are 
called in the histories of philosophy, the New Pla- 
tomst, or Eclectic, doctrines. ‘The rise of this sect 
is traced by historians partly to a desire to oppose 
a philosophical system of paganism to the trium- 
phant progress of Christianity. Ammonius Sacca, 
of Alexandria, who lived at the end of the second 
and beginning of the third century, is commonly re- 
garded as its founder. Among his disciples, who 
Were eminent and numerous, two of the most dis- 
tinguished were Longinus and Plotinus, of the for- 
mer of whom at Athens, and afterwards of the 
latter at Rome, Porphyry was a hearer. Porphyry 
was born in Syria, in the year 233. His name was 


* Min. Fel. Octavius. § 833 — 35. (pp. 344— 365.) 


PORPHYRY. 49 


Melek, which in the language of that country sig- 
nifies @ king, and which Longinus translating into 
Greek, called him I7ogpugioc, Porphyry, that is pur- 
ple, or purple-wearer. At the time when he lived, 
Christianity, though still laboring under grievous 
discouragements, and making progress against a 
vast opposition, had yet forced its way to such a 
place among the elements of the social system as 
to forbid its being treated with mere contumely and 
outrage. Christians had lived down the gross cal- 
umnies by which it had been attempted to place 
them under the ban of the rest of the world, and no 
trace of the worst of those slanders appears in the re- 
mains of the writings of Porphyry. He wrote fifteen 
books ‘“ Against the Christians,” which were doom- 
ed to destruction in the following century by the 
weak piety of Theodosius. The works of three 
fathers, in formal reply to his, have also unhappily 
perished ;* but the consideration attached to his 
name caused his treatise, now in question, to be so 
frequently referred to by the ancient writers of the 
Church, as to afford us the means of obtaining a 
substantially adequate idea of the course and topics 
of its argument. The topics thus ascertained to 
have been urged in it, I proceed now to particularize, 
with occasional specimens of the manner of their 
illustration. There are pieces ascribed to the same 
author, but of uncertain authenticity, which, could 


* Methodius, Eusebius of Cesarea, and Apollinarius. Vide Hieron. 
Catul. Script. Eccles. (Opp. Tom. 1. p. 404) Pref. in Daniel. 120- 
(Ibid. p. 1045.) 

Vou. Il. is 


50 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


they be relied upon, would furnish highly interest- 
ing contributions to the Christian evidence ; but 
from them I do not quote. 

1. I observed that Porphyry does not appear to 
have repeated the most offensive fictions that had 
been vented to the prejudice of Christians and 
Christianity. They had become too stale; time 
had made those whom they injured better known ; 
and, through the incredulity they would have encoun- 
tered, there would have been danger that the repe- 
tition of them might prejudice the assailant’s own 
cause. But even Porphyry had not learned the 
language of courtesy in speaking of the long-tra- 
duced sect. Even he was willing that the vague 
odium of a bad name should obstruct its credit and 
progress. He qualifies it as “the barbarian pre- 
sumption,” and speaks of Origen as having been 
one of those who “live as Christians, and contrary 
to the laws,” *— distinguishing Christians from 
such as pursue a course of life approved by the 
laws. And he lends himself to the old charge of 
their being enemies to the public weal, and pro- 
voking the divine displeasure. People should not 
wonder, he says, ‘“ that this sickness has distressed 
the city for so many years, Ausculapius and the other 
eods no longer giving their aid. For, since Jesus 
has been honored, no one has enjoyed any public 
favor of the gods.” + 

2. From two passages of Jerome, we learn, that 


* In Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Lib. vi. cap. 19. 
t In Euseb. Prepar. Evang. Lib. v. cap. 1. p. 179. (Edit. Paris, 1628.) 


PORPHYRY. 51 


Porphyry, when he spoke of our Lord’s miracles, 
referred them, as others had done, who could not 
venture to dispute their occurrence, to demoniacal 
or magical arts. ‘The words of one of those pas- 
Sages are the following; “ Perhaps, like the Gen- 
tiles, and the impious Porphyry and Eunomius, you 
may pretend that these are but tricks of demons.” * 
In the other, having spoken of the labors of the 
apostles, Jerome goes on; “Some one will say, 
‘They did all this for gain’; for so Porphyry says ; 
‘Poor and uncultivated men, when they had 
nothing, wrought some signs by magical arts. But 
it is no great thing to work signs. The magicians 
wrought them in Egypt against Moses. Apollonius 
wrought them. So did Apuleius. Innumerable 
persons have done it.’” + However it may have 
been with Celsus, it is likely that Porphyry resort- 
ed to this solution in good faith. He is likely to 
have been an honest believer in the powers of 
magic ; for, with all his undeniable abilities and 
learning, it is certain that a childish credulity was 
his foible. He wrote a life of Pythagoras, who 
lived eight hundred years before him, and of whom 
he was a great admirer. In this work he Says ; 
“If we may believe those who have written con- 


* Hieron. advers. Vig. Opp. Tom. I. p. 598. (Edit. Paris, 1609.) 

t Id. Breviarium in Psalterium. This tract is printed by the Ben- 
edictine editors, in whose collection of Jerome’s works the passage 
here quoted may be found in the Appendix to Vol. II, at p. 335. If 
(which is their opinion) the tract is spurious, and was not written earlier 
than the sixth century (p. 119). it may still be regarded as good authority 
respecting a statement in the now lost writings of Porphyry. 


52, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


cerning him, ancients and deserving of credit, Py- 
thagoras imparted his instructions to brute animals. 
For he seized the Daunian bear, which had much 
troubled the neighbours, and, having stroked it 
awhile, and fed it with bread and acorns, he charged 
it no more to eat flesh, and let it go; after which it 
lived peaceably in the woods and on the mountains, 
and never more attacked so much as a brute ani- 
mal. And, when he saw the Tarentine ox roving 
at pleasure in the fields, and eating green beans, he 
accosted the herdsman, and desired him to tell the 
ox, not to eat beans; and, when he laughed, and 
said he could not converse with oxen, Pythagoras 
went up to the ox himself, and whispered in its 
ear, upon which the ox not only walked out of the 
field, where the beans were, but never after would 
eat any.” * Such was the man,—the writer of this 
narrative,— whose judgment, if he had exercised it 
on the subject, had rejected the evidences of the 
Christian faith. How much easier is it to some 
minds to believe without evidence than with it! 
How strangely alike are skepticism and credulity ! 
3. Porphyry canvassed at much length the plea 
set up by Christians for the claims of their religion 
and its author, on the ground of the fulfilment in 
them of ancient Jewish prophecies ; and I think it 
must be owned that he had a great advantage in 
this argument, by reason of the injudicious and 
extravagant manner in which it was treated by the 


* Porphyry de Vitéd Pythag. §§ 23, 24. p. 31. (Edit. Amstel.) 


ee 


PORPHYRY. 53 


Christian writers of his time, who often assumed 
positions, which it was impossible they should main- 
tain against a learned and acute antagonist. In 
particular, he laid out his strength upon their inter- 
pretations of the book of Daniel, devoting to that 
discussion one whole book, the twelfth, of his trea- 
tise. Respecting his views on this subject we are 
fully informed by Jerome, in the introduction to his 
commentary on the book of Daniel. Porphyry 
argues, chiefly from iternal marks, that the book 
was not written till within about a hundred and fifty 
years of the time of Jesus, and that it was not 
designed as a course of prediction of future events, 
but in great part as a history of the past. 

It is out of the question here to enter upon an 
inquiry of such extent, as that of the authenticity of 
the book of Daniel, or that of the general and_par- 
ticular correctness of the interpretations of it by 
early Christian writers. What is chiefly to the 
purpose here is the remark, that very many of their 
speculations respecting the sense of Old Testa- 
ment scripture might be given up as indefensible, — 
as many in fact ought to be, — and yet the evidence 
for the divine origin of both the Old and New Tes- 
tament remain perfectly untouched. Nay, it must be 
said that they have often embarrassed that evidence, 
as far as their views have obtained credit, when 
they have been honestly endeavouring to strengthen 
it. Nothing is better known, than that, at the 
present day, equally judicious and competent Chris- 
tian critics differ in their applications of one or 


5A PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


another Old ‘Testament passage to narratives and 
statements of the New, and this without affecting at 
all the certainty of the evidence of either. That the 
Christian writers of Porphyry’s time pressed into 
the service of the prophetical argument more than 
could be intelligently put to that use, is what 
probably all well-qualified Christian expositors of 
the present day would allow. And as far as we 
know from the remaining fragments of Porphyry 
what the arguments of this kind were, which he un- 
dertook to refute, | am not going too far when I say, 
that every one of them might be safely dismissed 
from the controversy, and the proper, distinctive, 
Christian evidence remain unassailed and entire. 

4. Porphyry founded an objection to Christianity 
on the fact of its late publication. ‘If Christ,’ — 
he said, “declares himself the way of salvation, 
grace, and truth, and offers a way of return, 
through himself alone, to believers in him, what 
was the lot of the many generations of men before 
him”? * This is a question which Augustine quotes 
and answers. And the same argument of his is 
referred to by Jerome, who writes; ‘“ Porphyry is 
wont to object to us, ‘ How, from Adam to Moses, and 
from Moses to the advent of Christ, could the kind 
and merciful God permit all nations to perish through 
ignorance of the divine law and commandments ? 
For neither Britain, a country fruitful in tyrants, 
nor the Scottish races, nor the barbarous tribes all 


* Augustin. ad Deogratias Epist. 49, Tom. II. p. 74. (Edit. Paris.) 


PORPHYRY. 55 


around to the sea, were acquainted with Moses and 
the prophets. Why should he appear then in the 
end of the world, and not before an innumerable 
multitude of men had perished?’?” * ‘To give a full 
answer to this question, showing, first, how the 
statement of fact, on which it is founded, needs to 
be qualified; secondly, that the time of the actual 
revelation of Christianity was, as far as we have 
the means of judging, the most seasonable for the 
accomplishment of its objects; and thirdly, that, as 
many of my hearers know to be shown at large in 
the admirable “ Analogy ” of Bishop Butler, such a 
prvort objections, whether we may think them good 
or bad, belong to a class which would be equally 
valid against innumerable facts in the established 
course of nature, where unquestionable experience 
refutes their validity, and therefore resolve them- 
selves into no objections at all,—to go into this 
argument would be to allow ourselves to be 
diverted from our present subject, which is the 
objections of Porphyry and of his age. Such as 
the objection is, it has obviously no peculiar force 
as coming from him or from his time. It is a 
philosophical objection, and has been repeated by 
others, who will bring it hereafter before our notice 
in a more methodical shape. 

I dismiss it, in its relation to Porphyry, with the 
same remark which I had occasion to make before 
respecting a similar argument on the part of Celsus. 

This is not the kind of objection, which would have 


* Hieron. ad Ctesiph. advers. Pelagium. (Tom. I. p. 813.) 


ad 


56 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


been resorted to by skilful reasoners, who, in that 
early time, when the recent facts of Christianity 
admitted of easy investigation, felt themselves to 
be in possession of any thing which could be 
plausibly said in contradiction of those alleged facts. 
Celsus lived in the century after the first publica- 
tion of our religion; Porphyry, a century later ; 
that is, the last of these writers was in mature life 
as near to Paul in point of time as we are to the 
settlers of Plymouth, the first was as near to John 
as we to the beginning of the American Revolution. 
If there were facts to refute the story of Christians, 
they were facts accessible to men standing in such 
a position; had they possessed any such facts, they 
would have produced them; had they supposed 
such facts were to be had, they would have sought 
them. They would not then have been at all dis- 
posed to have recourse to an objection, which no 
mind except of a certain degree of reflection would 
entertain; which a carefully reflecting mind would 
reject as untenable ; and which with no mind of any 
description would have any thing like the weight 
of an exposure of the alleged substantive facts. 
When I have evidence to produce showing that 
such and such things did not occur, or rendering it 
doubtful whether they did occur, I do not perplex 
the question with arguments (even if I imagine I 
have good ones) respecting their abstract fitness as 
parts of the general plan of Providence. Celsus 
and Porphyry would not have done it, had it been 
in their power to do better. 


PORPHYRY. 57 


5. Porphyry also imitates Celsus in the en- 
deavour to point out inconsistencies and contradic- 
tions in the New Testament books; a kind of un- 
successful minute criticism, in which, as things have 
turned out, he has made a material contribution to 
the evidence of the truth he was assailing, by show- 
ing that those books were in his hands the same 
that they are in ours. I give but a few examples. 

Jerome reports that Porphyry, not counting, as 
he should have done, the name of Jechoniah, in the 
genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, 
as both the end of the second class of fourteen, 
and the beginning of the third, had charged Mat- 
thew with an erroneous enumeration.* Upon the 
text in the same book, where it is said, that ‘‘ Jesus 
saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of 
custom, and he said to him ‘ Follow me,’ and he 
arose and followed him,” Porphyry remarked to 
the effect of its being incredible, that men should 
follow any one who merely called them; forget- 
tig, as Jerome says, ‘what signs and wonders 
had preceded, which, without doubt, the apostles had 
witnessed, before they believed.” ¢ “That it might 
be fulfilled,” says Matthew (referring to the sev- 
enty-eighth Psalm), “which was spoken by the pro- 
phet, ‘1 will open my mouth in parables.’”” Some 
manuscript copies, still extant, exhibit the reading, 
“That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by 


* Hieron. in Daniel. i. 1. (Tom. II. p. 1023.) 
t Id. in Mat. ix. 9. (Tom. III. p. 616.) 


Vou. IL, 8 


58 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


the prophet [saiah.”’? Such a copy, it appears, was 
in the hands of Porphyry, which gave him occasion 
to complain of Matthew, as having ascribed to Isaiah 
words of which Asaph was the author.* Comparing 
the introductions to the Gospels of Matthew and 
Mark, he made a similar objection to a verse of the 
latter, in which is apparently ascribed to Isaiah lan- 
guage really taken from Malachi.t He finds fault 
that Jesus is represented to have walked upon the 
sea, when the lake of Gennesareth was intended, 
as if the word sea were used by way of increasing 
the wonder;{ that Jesus is said to have refused 
to accompany his brethren to Jerusalem to the feast 
of tabernacles, and afterwards made the journey 
alone, at which, says Jerome, ‘“‘ Porphyry barks, 
charging Jesus with inconstancy and caprice ;’’§ 
and that Jesus threatened the wicked with ever- 
lasting punishment, and at the same time said, 
‘¢ With what measure ye mete it shall be measured 
to you again,” as if the execution of the threat 
in the former words would be a violation of the 
principle in the latter.|| Once more ; he has much 
to say of disagreements among the early preachers 
of the faith, as between Paul and Peter, between 
Paul, Barnabas, and Mark, and between the par- 
ties who became excited against one another re- 
specting the terms of the introduction of Gentiles 


* Hieron. Breviar. in Psalt. (Ubi supra, p. 316.) 

t Id. in Mat. iii. 3. (Tom. III. p. 590.) 

{ Id. Que:tion. in Genes. (Tom. I. p. 1311.) 

§ Id. Dialog. advers. Pelag. Lib. ii. (Tom. I. p 864) 
|| Augustin. ad Deogratias. Epist. 49. (Tom. II. p. 77.) 


PORPHYRY. 59 


into the church. He did not observe that these 
were but the temporary dissensions of honest men, 
such as were altogether to be expected under the 
new and extraordinary circumstances in which they 
were placed, deranging many of their old habits of 
thought; and especially he did not observe what 
force the fact which gave him such offence actually 
lends to an important point in the evidences of our 
faith, in the way of refuting the supposition of a 
conspiracy among its early friends. Wicked plots 
will not endure the trial of sharp feuds among the 
confederates. ‘ Porphyry argues,” says Jerome, 
‘the falsehood of the whole doctrine, ..... be- 
cause the chiefs of the churches disagreed.” * More 
cautious reasoners will think that the same fact 
well sustains the opposite inference. 

I pass from the consideration of these objections 
of Porphyry, after merely recalling attention, in a 
word, to their bearing upon the great question of 
the genuimeness of the New Testament books. 
Of course, every instance in which he has subjected 
those books to criticism, commenting on passages 
which we now read in them, goes just so far to 
show that they were in his hands what they are in 
ours. It appears that he did employ this criticism 
to a much greater extent than is indicated by the 
existing remains of his works, and that the books 
which he understood to be the authoritative books 
of Christians were the same which were regarded 
in that light by the Christian fathers. ‘There are 


* Hieron. Proem. in Epist. ad Gal. (Tom. III. p. $62.) 


60 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


in the Holy Scriptures innumerable passages,” says 
Jerome, —and Jerome was not at all treating our 
argument, — “ which Porphyry has cavilled at, for 
want of understanding them.”* If he criticized 
so many, he had them before him to criticize. 

I have but a few words to say respecting the 
state of the controversy at the close of the third cen- 
tury, as some light is thrown upon it in the work of 
the Christian father Arnobius. His time is not 
precisely ascertained, but the best opinion is that he 
wrote not more than five or six years earlier or later 
than the year 300. He had been bred an idolater, 
and, after his conversion, wrote a treatise in seven 
books, entitled «‘ Against the Gentiles.” He was 
a man of learning, and wrote in a spirited and 
nervous, though not generally an attractive or grace- 
ful style. He argues judiciously in favor of Chris- 
tianity from various considerations; as, from its 
intrinsic excellence, as compared with all other 
systems of religious belief; from what had been 
already experienced, on a large scale, of its con- 
vincing, converting, reforming, and spiritualizing 
power; from the perfection of the character of Jesus, 
and especially from his miraculous works, establish- 
ed, as to their actual occurrence, by the unquestiona- 
ble testimony of men who knew what they had seen, 
and who had no motive but love of truth and righ- 
teousness for publishing their doctrine, and every 
possible worldly motive to suppress it. But what 
we are concerned rather to notice is, those objec- 


* Hieron. in Epist. ad Galat. ii. 11. (Tom. II. p. 880.) 


TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 61 


tions of unbelief, which, living when he did, he 
esteemed it most pertinent to consider. 

1. In the first place, though he does not refer to 
any continued currency of the worst imputations 
which had been cast upon the company of believers 
in the earlier ages, —imputations which, it is 
reasonable to presume, had by this time gone out 
of credit, (though not out of memory, as we may 
hereafter see,)—he does allude to the prejudices 
still attempted to be kept up against the sect, by 
denouncing them as impious and ireligious men, 
atheists,* disturbers of the public peace, and authors, 
through the provocation which their apostasy offered 
to the gods, of all the disasters that afflicted man- 
kind. ‘As I have fallen in with some,” he says, 
in giving an account of the occasion of his work 
by way of introduction, “‘ who assert that, since the 
Christian community appeared, the world is ruin- 
ed, and the human race visited with every kind of 
calamity, and that the gods themselves, since those 
rites are deserted through the medium of which they 
were used to communicate with mortals, are ban- 
ished from our earthly regions, | have determined, 
after the poor measure of my power, to endeavour 
to counteract this scandal, and remove the odium 
under which we Christians unjustly labor, that 
they may not flatter themselves with too great suc- 
cess, while they bandy about these popular slanders, 
nor think that they have gained their point, because 


* Adversus Gentes. Lib. iii. § 28. (p. 125. Edit. Orellii.) 


62, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


we abstain from such altercations.”* ‘This was 
what Arnobius felt himself called upon to meet, as 
champion of the Christian body, — an unreasonable 
estranging odium, not an argument upon the merits 
of the case ;—a blind hatred, sedulously instilled, 
of the persons and the cause of Christians, such as 
forbade an examination of their pretensions; not a 
dissatisfaction, subsequent to inquiry, with the suffi- 
ciency of the evidence which sustained them. 
Further on he says, ‘‘ We are pronounced stupid, 
stolid, infatuated, dunces, yea, mere brutes, because 
we have devoted ourselves to God, by whose will 
and decree every thing which is, subsists.” + Again ; 
«Will you still maintain,” he asks, ‘that we be- 
long to an impious fraternity, because with vener- 
able forms of worship we address the chief and stay 
of the universe? Will you say that we therefore 
deserve to be reproached by you as wretched, god- 
less men??? Once more, in the introduction to the 
sixth book; “In this account you have fastened on 
us the gross charge of impiety, because we do not 
build temples for the offices of our worship, nor 
frame material images of any of the gods, ..... 
nor pour out the blood of animals.” § But it would 
be superfluous to collect further examples of the 
appeals to popular prejudice, with which the Chris- 
tian cause is represented as assailed, at the time 
when this defence was composed. ‘They are scat- 
tered over all parts of the treatise. 


* Advers. Gent. Lib, i. § 1. (p. 3.) t Ibid. § 28. (p. 18.) 
t Ibid. § 29. (p. 19.) § Ibid. Lib. vi. § 1, (p. 202.) 


TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 63 


2. It was objected to the religion, that it was but 
of recent origin. For instance, in the second book ; 
“You are in the habit of objecting to us, that this 
faith of ours is modern, and originated only a short 
time ago, and that you cannot forsake for it the 
ancient faith which came to you from your fathers.””* 
Arnobius has made some judicious observations, 
exposing the weakness of this plea. He might 
advantageously have added another. _ If the religion 
was of recent origin, so much the greater were the 
facilities for detecting any thing falsely pretended in 
its history. If it had been published but a short 
time before, — “a few days” is the expression,— 
they who rejected it had the less excuse for taking 
any other way to justify their unbelief than that of 
simply showing that there had been an attempt ata 
bold fraud upon the world. 

3. It was asked, in the time of Arnobius, why 
Christ was sent no earlier, if he were sent at all, and 
why the revelation through him was not at once 
made universal, — questions, respecting which all 
that it would belong to this place to say, has been 
already said under the corresponding head of the 
extracts from Porphyry. Arnobius answers in some 
excellent remarks, which might be well quoted, 
if this were the time for the discussion. I may 
add, however, that Arnobius well retorts these ques- 
tions upon the opponent, in the way of an argu- 
ment ad hominem. “I will ask you too,” he 
says, ‘if your god Hercules was to be born, or 


* Advers. Gent. Lib. ii. § 66. (p. 97.) 


64 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


AEsculapius, or Mercury, or Bacchus, or other bene- 
factors of mankind, why were they sent so late, so 
that the most ancient ages did not know them? 
Do you say that there was some good reason? 
You must own then that there might have been a 
ood one for the late coming of Jesus the Saviour.” * 

4. Exception was taken to the alleged circum- 
stances of the life and death of Jesus, to the effect, 
that his humble condition and ignominious fate were 
inconsistent with the decencies of the sublime office 
which he was said to have been sent to execute. 
“The gods are not incensed against you,” Arno- 
bius represents the opponent as saying, ‘‘ because 
you adore the omnipotent, but because you insist, 
that one born a man, and, —a thing infamous for 
the vilest persons, — put to death on a cross, was a 
cod, and now lives again.” T 

5. The Christian doctrine of the resurrection 
was a stumbling-block to those for whom Arnobius 
argued, as we saw that it had been long before to 
Trypho the Jew. This point is set forth im his 
work in various particulars. } 

6. Once more; Arnobius instructs us, m accor- 
dance with what we have seen of earlier times, how 
the argument from miracles was disposed of by unbe- 
lievers of his day. Having introduced that subject, 
he says, “ Perhaps some one will meet us with the 
stale and puerile calumny, ‘Jesus was a magician ; 


* Advers. Gent. Lib. ii. § 74. (p. 104.) 
t Ibid. Lib. i. §§ 36, 40. (pp. 23, 27.) 
t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 13, 14, 15, 26, 34. (pp. 57 — 59, 67, 72, 73.) 


TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 65 


he performed all those works by clandestine arts ; 
from the recesses of Egypt he stole the names of 
powerful angels, and the secrets of foreign science.’ 
ipebsiats Can you pretend, then, that his deeds were 
the enchantments of demons, were the achieve- 
ments of magical arts? Can you indicate to us any 
one, Can you point out one among all the sorcerers 
that ever lived, who wrought any thing in a thou- 
sandth part so marvellous as what was done by 
(bri shohuegoaters Who does not know, that whatever 
they do, they do in such and such ways [which 
he specifies], while, as to Christ, all that he did, 
he did without any instrumentality, without the 
observance of any rites or ceremonies, and merely 
by the authority of his own name?”* He then, 
in a passage of great eloquence, recites a variety 
of the miracles of Jesus, and contrasts them 
with works of others which might seem of a 
like character, concluding with calling attention 
to the fact, that he not only did such wonders 
himself, but communicated the power of doing 
them to others, his disciples. And the reason 
alleged by Arnobius for his proceeding thus, is what 
in the present connexion particularly demands our 
notice. ‘When he foresaw that the true charac- 
ter of his wonderful works would be disputed, in 
order to dispel the suspicion of their being done by 
magical art, he selected to himself from the im- 
mense body of the people, who followed his steps 
with wonder, fishermen, laborers, rustics, and other 


* Advers. Gent. Lib. i. §§ 43, 44, (p. 29.) 
Vot. Il. 9 


66 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


unlearned men of that rank, who, being sent abroad 
into various countries, should, as he had done, per- 
form such wonders without recourse to any of the 
expedients of art. ..... Nor was any thing done by 
himself to the astonishment of all spectators, which 
he did not cause to be equally done by the agency 
of those inconsiderable and uninstructed men. ” * 
I need not say that we are not here concerned to 
defend the precise ground which the reasoning of 
Arnobius occupies. The material thing, rendered 
apparent by the course of his discussion is, that 
the argument of unbelief in his day was not aimed 
against the fact of the miracles of Jesus, but 
labored to explain them on a different hypothesis 
from that of their being testimonials of a divine 
interposition. 

In short, as far as we have yet proceeded, we 
have met with nothing, in the ages whence it 
ought to be furnished, if from any, to discredit the 
proper, direct, historical evidence for our religion. 

I proceed, in my next Lecture, to some account 
of the state of the controversy in the fourth cen- 
tury, as exhibited in the writings of the philoso- 
pher Hierocles, and the Emperor Julian. 


* Advers, Gent. Lib. i. § 50. (p. 34.) 


LE.C TURE XL. 


GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. 


[conrTINUzED.] 


In the course of two hundred and fifty years’ 
preaching to the Gentiles, that is, by the beginning 
of the fourth century, Christianity had made such 
progress in the polished and learned circles of so- 
ciety, as not only to forbid its being disposed of 
any longer by mere calumny, contempt, and out- 
rage, but also to attract such attention to its proper, 
direct evidence, that of the miraculous works of its 
author, that this topic could no longer be passed 
over with the slight notice hitherto given to it 
by opponents of the faith. 

The philosophers of the New Platonic, or Eclec- 
tic, school, who had become the chief adversaries 
of Christianity, both estimating the force of this ar- 
gument, and witnessing its extensive actual effect, 
addressed themselves to meet it in such a manner 
as might best promise to influence the popular 
mind. Porphyry himself had, in the previous cen- 


68 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


tury, in his “ Life of Pythagoras,” ascribed miracu- 
lous works to that ancient, though it does not 
distinctly appear that he intended his narrative to 
furnish an argument bearing on the Christian evi- 
dences. This method of reasoning, however, was 
expressly brought forward, and mainly relied upon, 
by Hierocles, the next assailant of our religion, 
whose writings we are to consider. The principal 
aim of his work was to present the wonderful 
things related of Apollonius Tyanus, as affording 
a parallel to the miracles of Jesus. 

Apollonius, a native of Tyana, a city of Cappa- 
docia, lived in the first century; but the precise 
time of either his birth or his death is not known. 
The account of him which furnished Hierocles 
with his materials, and which is still extant, was 
composed in Greek, by the sophist Philostratus of 
Lemnos, in eight books. Philostratus died in the 
year 244, and is believed to have written the work 
now in question some thirty years before, or some- 
thing more than a hundred years later than the 
time of Apollonius. In the introduction to his 
work, he gives a particular account of the occasion 
of his composing it, and the nature of his materials. 
He says, that, being at Rome, the Empress Julia, 
wife of the Emperor Severus, placed in his hands 
certain papers relating to the life of Apollonius, and 
from them directed him to compile a history. ‘The 
papers proved to consist of memoirs of Apollonius, 
purporting to have been prepared by a certain 
Damis, who had accompanied him on his travels ; 


HIEROCLES. 69 


and they were said to have been presented to the 
Empress by some third person, whom Philostratus 
does not name.* The work was not so much to 
the purpose of Hierocles, even supposing it to have 
been a work of authority, as has seemed to have 
been commonly understood, made up as it is, not 
so much of accounts of wonderful things done by 
Apollonius, as of wonderful things witnessed by 
him in his peregrinations in distant countries. It 
can in fact be no more correctly described than as 
a fabulous book of travels, resembling, for instance, 
the journeys of Sir John Mandeville, if one should 
not rather compare it to the voyages of Gulliver. 
Let a statement of some of its contents show 
whether there is injustice in this comparison. 
Apollonius, the son of a family of consideration 
at Tyana,t and educated under the care of philoso- 
phers adhering to the different sects of the day, 
attached himself to the tenets and discipline of the 
Pythagoreans, { and adopted their ascetic modes of 
life. He observed a vegetable diet, went bare- 
foot, suffered his hair to grow, § and for five years 
continued speechless. || In imitation of Pythagoras, 
he resolved to travel in remote regions, and, his dis- 
ciples refusing to accompany him, he set out at- 
tended by two servants.{1 At Nineveh, he attached 
to him Damis, a citizen of that place, whom he 


* De Vité Apollonii. Lib. i. cap. 3. (p. 5.) 

t Ibid. Lib. i. cap. iv. (p. 6.) { Ibid. cap. vii. (pp. 8, 9.) 

§ Ibid. cap. viii. (p. 10.) || Ibid. cap. xiv. (p. 16.) 
1 Ibid. cap. xviii. (pp. 22, 23.) 


70 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


assured that he was acquainted with all human lan- 
cuages, though he had never learned them, and could 
converse with brute animals.* Proceeding on their 
way, they came to a region inhabited by men four 
cubits, and five cubits high. t They told of beasts, 
resembling lions, with a human head;{ a seal, 
which, having lost its young, fasted three days tor 
grief ;§ a city which was impregnable, because de- 
fended against enemies, not with common arms, but 
with thunder and lightning ; || a river, in which were 
fish called peacocks from their resemblance to that 
bird, having purple crests, party-colored scales, and 
olden tails which they could turn in all directions. 1 
They met with griffins and pygmies.** ‘They 
came where were dragons, which the inhabitants 
hunted for the sake of a stone of wonderful virtue 
in their heads; +t and in the chase they fascinated 
those animals with music. ‘They told of a city, 
whose inhabitants understood the language of 
beasts; {{ and of two precious casks possessed by the 
Indians, of which if in a time of drought they open- 
ed one, copious rains immediately followed ; if they 
closed it, the rain forthwith ceased. If the other 
was opened, it would raise a hurricane ; if it was 
closed, the winds would be hushed. §§ ‘They were 
invited to a feast, at which there was no need of 


* De Vité Appollonii. Lib. i. cap. 19. (p. 23.) Lib. iv. cap. 3. (p. 142.) 


t Ibid. Lib. ii. cap. 4. (p. 52.) t Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 45. (p. 182.) 
§ Ibid. Lib. ii. cap. 14. (p. 66.) || Ibid. cap. 33. (p. 86.) 
{ Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 1. (p. 95.) ** Ibid. capp. 47, 48. (pp. 188, 134.) 


tt Ibid. capp. 6,7, 8. (pp. 98—100.) f} Ibid. cap. 9. (p. 101.) 
§§ Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 14. (p. 404.) 


ai 


HIEROCLES. 71 


attendance; but the seats, the dishes, the plates, 
and drinking vessels, all presented themselves as 
they were wanted, waiting on the entertainment 
themselves, and passing from place to place, as the 
guests required them.* 

From the first three of the eight books of which 
the work of Philostratus consists, I have thus 
given a few specimens of its contents. They are 
sufficient to show its character. Whoever it was 
that first brought together its materials, it is clear 
that it was a mere wild romance. Among the 
many extraordinary things which Apollonius is 
related to have seen and heard on his voyages, it 
might be expected that place would be found for 
some that he had done. He is said to have pos- 
sessed the power of foretelling future events; yet 
at the same time it is related that he carefully com- 
posed an account of himself to deliver to Domitian, 
not foreseeing, what proved to be the fact, that 
Domitian would not suffer him to pronounce it. ¢ 
He interpreted the chirping of birds, having learned 
their language, as he said, during a residence in 
Arabia, from persons who had themselves acquired 
it by eating dragons’ hearts.t At the tomb of 
Achilles, he conversed, — without witnesses, how- 
ever, —with the ghost of that hero.§ He vanished 
away, in the presence of all the great men of Rome, 
when brought to trial before Domitian. || In the 


* De Vitd Appollonii. Lib. iii. cap. 27. (pp. 117, 118.) 

t Ibid. Lib. viii. cap. 6. (p. 326.) 

{ Ibid. Lib. i. cap. 20. (p. 25.) Lib. iii. cap. 9. (p. 101.) 

§ Ibid. Lib. iv. cap. 15. (p. 151.) || Ibid. Lib. viii. cap. 4, 5. (p. 324.) 


Fi! PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


midst of an harangue at Ephesus, he stopped short 
and exclaimed “ Down with the tyrant,” at the very 
instant, as it afterwards proved, when Domitian was 
slain at Rome.* ‘Ten months after his death, he 
appeared in a dream to a young man, one of his 
followers, who had doubted of the immortality of 
the soul. T 

It is obvious to remark, that, if the work of Philos- 
tratus had been of a different character from what I 
have represented it, —if, instead of relating all 
sorts of wonders seen and heard of by him in his 
distant travels, it had confined itself to a relation of 
wonders which he wrought, —it would have been 
a work altogether without historical authority, by 
reason of the circumstances of its composition. 
When we treat of the evidence of the miraculous 
works of Jesus, we consider it an all-important pre- 
liminary to show, that the testimony to them comes 
on the authority of witnesses so situated as to be 
able to know the truth of what they undertake to 
report; in other words, that the Gospels were 
written by eye and ear witnesses of the deeds and 
discourses of Jesus, and companions of eye and 
ear witnesses. Apollonius of T'yana was a follower 
of the rule of Pythagoras in the first century; but 
Philostratus, in the third, was the first to make him 
a considerable man. Celsus, the heathen assailant 
of our religion in the second century, does not 
mention his name, though, had the afterwards 


* De Vitd Apollonii, Lib. viii. cap. 26. (p. 367.) 
t Ibid, cap. 31. (p. 370.) 


HIEROCLES. 73 


received accounts of him, true or false, had then any 
circulation, it would have been to the purpose of 
Celsus, as well as to that of Hierocles, to introduce 
him into the controversy. By Lucian he is men- 
tioned about the year 170, but not favorably,* and 
also by another profane writer of that period. + 
There is not found any notice of him by any of the 
Christian fathers before Origen, though in that 
time lived many distinguished for learning, and 
well informed of whatever there was’ to influence 
the popular mind against their faith; as Justin, 
Clement of Alexandria, Ireneeus, and Tertullian. 
Origen merely refers to him in a sentence or two, 
as a magician and philosopher, but without a hint 
of his having been brought, in any quarter, into 
comparison with Jesus.{ By and by came Philos- 
tratus more than a hundred years after his death, 
and commemorated him in an elaborate biography. 
And how did Philostratus obtain his facts, so to 
call them? He is candid enough to inform his 
readers, being willing, as one is half inclined to 
think, after doing a piece of task work for an impe- 
rial patron, to put them on their guard respecting the 
credit due to his story. In the following passage, 
beginning the third chapter of his first book, he 
answers the question, which every reader, inquisitive 
respecting the authority of his history as a work of 
credit, sees to be the material one.‘ Damis,” says 


“ Pseudomantis, § 5. (Tom. V. p. 69. Edit. Bipont.) 
t L. Apuleii Apologia. (p. 544, Edit. Paris, 1688. ) 
Contra Cels. Lib. vi. § 41. (p. 662.) 


Vou. TE 10 


74 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


he, ‘was a man not without sense, who once dwelt 
at old Nineveh. He was an adherent of Apollonius 
in his philosophy, and wrote an account of his trav- 
els, in which he says he was his companion, and 
recorded his opinions, his discourses, and predic- 
tions. A certain friend of Damis brought these 
“memoranda, not hitherto publicly known, to the 
knowledge of the Empress Julia; and, | at that time 
being entertained at her court (for she was studious 
of the art of rhetoric), she gave me her commands 
to transcribe those narratives, and reduce them to a 
proper shape. For the Ninevite had written them 
with intelligence, but not with skill. I likewise fell 
in with the book of a certain Maximus of Augis, con- 
taining an account of Apollonius’s doings in that city. 
Apollonius also wrote his will, from which one may 
learn how devoted he was to philosophy. As to the 
work of Mceragenes, who wrote four books on Apol- 
lonius, no stress is to be laid upon it, as he was 
ignorant of many events in the life of his hero. 
Thus have I explained how I collected these scat- 
tered documents, and how I came to dispose them 
as I have done.” 

Such is the candid account, which Phuilostrates 
himself gives of his historical authorities. Is it too 
bold a conjecture, that, while he could not refuse to 
gratify a romantic female sovereign, with whose 
patronage and friendship he was honored, by 
making up for her a tale of wonders on which her 
heart was bent, from sketches of which she un- 
derstood herself to be the sole possessor, he yet 


HIEROCLES. 75 


intended to save his credit with cooler and more 
impartial readers in after times, by frankly inform- 
ing them that he did not put forth the tale on his 
own veracity? He had a will of Apollonius in his 
hands, he says in the passage which I have quoted. 
And how did that serve him in his work ? Merely, 
as appears from his own statement, to show how 
devoted Apollonius was to philosophy. He had 
also, he says, fallen in with a book containing an 
account of the doings of Apollonius at Agis; but 
this, whatever were its contents or authority, does 
not appear to have furnished any contribution to his 
list of wonders. ‘There had been a previous life of 
Apollonius, by one Moeragenes; and this, it seems, 
of some pretension, for it was written in four books. 
But of this, says Philostratus, “no account is to be 
made.” Why? Because it had too fabulous an 
air, and was therefore to be regarded with suspi- 
cion? Not at all, but for a different reason. 
Because, says Philostratus, “« Mceragenes was unac- 
quainted with many things concerning Apollonius.” 
That is,—to put the fair construction upon the 
words, — Moeragenes lent no authority to such a 
work as Philostratus was expected to compose. 
He had written the life of Apollénius, the philoso- 
pher; not of Apollonius, the wonder-worker or the 
wonder-seer. 

The remaining authority was the collection of 
the notes of Damis, which Philostratus had been 
desired to copy out and digest. And who was 
Damis? It does not appear that any thing was 


76 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


known of him, except on the statement of a person, 
who himself does not appear to have been known 
so much as by name to Philostratus, —a certain 
friend or relation of Damis, who brought these doc- 
uments not yet known, and presented them to the 
Empress Julia. 

The true account of the matter, could we get at 
the particulars, would probably prove to be, that 
some relative or pretended relative of a person who 
either had or had not been an attendant on Apollo- 
nius, being acquainted with the dilettanti tastes of 
the Empress, and knowing that nothing is lost by 
making presents to sovereigns of what gratifies their 
fancy or their vanity, composed these (so styled) 
notes of Damis for the purpose. If the Empress 
did not suspect, or profess herself to suspect, the 
fraud, it was not for the courtier Philostratus to do 
either. It was but for him to take the materials, 
and execute the work expected of him. 

Am I making a supposition im the least degree 
violent? Am I making any but what is the most 
natural? I submit it to any reasonable mind, 
whether this is not the construction, which, with 
the facts before it, independently of all regard to 
bearings on Christianity or on any thing else, a 
reasonable mind feels itself impelled to put on the 
transaction. For our present purpose it would suf- 
fice to stop far short of this, and simply to say, that 
in such a case no credit can be given to a history 
professedly composed more than a century after the 
events which it records, on no better authority than 


HIEROCLES. vy 


that of a person, who had said that the documents 
in his possession were prepared by an eye-witness ; 
a person too, who is not so much as named; who 
was not known, as far as appears, to the writer of 
the history of which his papers became the basis ; 
and who also, as far as appears, did not subject 
himself to any hazard or inconvenience in making a 
false assertion of their authenticity. 

Though I have made these remarks on the occa- 
sion and origin of the life of Apollonius by Philos- 
tratus, depriving it of all credit as a piece of true 
history, I cannot but think, that whoever will exam- 
ine it will be inclined to pronounce them superflu- 
ous. When I first looked into it, I was surprised to 
find how little its tenor and contents recommended 
it for the use to which it was put by Hierocles in 
the Christian controversy. From his argument, and 
the remarks which I had seen upon it, | had sup- 
posed that Philostratus had represented his hero 
as distinguished by a supernatural knowledge and 
power above the sons of men, and so far, at least, 
as presenting a parallel to the master of Christians. 
But the actual case is far different. Apollonius is 
indeed represented as having done some marvellous 
things, but not nearly as many as he is said to have 
witnessed. On the showing of his own biographer, 
Apollonius was not nearly so much of a wonder- 
worker, as of a wonder-seer. Here the parallel 
with Jesus utterly fails. 

Nay, more ; granting all related of Apollonius to 
be true, and the one fact would defeat the other in 


78 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


respect to any attempt to ascribe to him a peculiar 
character. What was averred of Jesus by his dis- 
ciples was, that he did mighty works which none 
could do, unless God, after a special manner, were 
with him. What was averred of Apollonius was, 
that though he did wonders, they were not so many 
as were done by other men in distant regions where 
he travelled; and that the aggregate of those done 
by him and them both, did not equal that of those 
witnessed by him in one and another place, which 
were not of a nature to be traced to any human 
instrumentality. And this fact, | may remark im 
passing (though the point does not particularly con- 
cern us), seems to me to settle a question, which 
has been discussed, whether Philostratus, as well as 
Hierocles after him, intended to set up Apollonius 
as arival to Jesus. Philostratus not only has not 
made the most distant allusion to Jesus from first to 
last, —which it would have been by no means unnat- 
ural to do, had he but regarded the cases as being in 
any degree similar, — but, had his purpose been what 
has been supposed, I cannot but think that he would 
have at least omitted very much of what he has 
recorded ; in short, that he would have composed a 
materially different book. It must, on the contrary, 
I think, be regarded as matter of surprise, that a 
work so little suited to the use to which it has been 
applied by Hierocles, should have been selected by 
that writer for the purpose ; and we are led to con- 
clude that the necessity of some movement of the 


HIEROCLES. 79 


kind must have been strongly felt, when it prompted 
a resort to so poor an expedient. 

To this use, however, the work of Philostratus 
was in fact put by Hierocles, who lived early in 
the century after him; and, whatever we may 
think, after these explanations, of his argument, 
it seems to have been regarded, by the Chris- 
tian fathers, as the master-stroke of the New Pla- 
tonists against Christianity. Hierocles, who, from 
the account of him by Lactantius, a Christian father 
of the same time, appears to have been a person 
high in office, urged his plea in a treatise, now lost, 
in two books, addressed ‘“ To the Christians.” It 
was soon answered by Eusebius, (in a short piece, 
though divided, like that of Philostratus, into eight 
books), which is still extant among the works of 
that father; and there is also a strain of remark 
upon it, at some length, in the fifth book of the 
“Institutes” of Lactantius. From these two 
sources we obtain ample information concerning 
the lost treatise of Hierocles. 

Eusebius confines himself to an exposure of the 
absurdity of his comparison of Apollonius to Christ. 
He says, in the introduction to his work, that 
Hierocles had used other arguments against Chris- 
tianity, but the consideration of these he expressly 
waves, they having been, as he says, merely bor- 
rowed word for word from Celsus, and so refuted 
long ago by Origen.* In the passage already re- 


* In Hieroclem. cap. 1. 


80 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


ferred to in the “Institutes” of Lactantius, that 
father enables us to supply this chasm, or rather to 
judge of the correctness of the general statement 
made by Eusebius. ‘The writer,” says Lactan- 
tius, who does not happen to name Hierocles, though 
he describes him and his work, in a manner fully 
indicating who is meant, ‘endeavoured to show 
the sacred Scriptures to be false by reason of the 
contradictions with which they abound. He par- 
ticularly produced several texts as inconsistent with 
each other; and indeed, so many did he enumerate, 
and so distinctly, that one might suspect he had 
at some time professed the religion which he now 
exposed. ..... And he spoke of the disciples as 
being rude and unlearned men. ” * 

After what has been already said upon the char- 
acter of such objections, it would be useless repe- 
tition, in this stage of our remarks, to add any 
thing beyond two brief observations to our notice 
of this writer. The first is, that, from the very 
nature of the argument from the case of Apollonius, 
it appears that the reality of the miracles of Jesus 
as facts was either admitted, or, at least, not dis- 
puted by Hierocles ; and this, indeed, is urged by 
Lactantius, where he says, “‘ When the writer would 
overthrow the miraculous works of Jesus, yet would 
not deny their reality, he proposed to show that 
Apollonius had done as great or ereater.”t ‘The 


* Lactant. Institutiones, Lib. v. cap. 2. (Tom. I. p. 332. edit. Bipont.) 
t Ibid. cap. 3. (p. 383.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. $l 


second remark is, that Hierocles had the same book, 
of New Testament scripture in his hands as the 
Christian fathers of his time, and considered them, 
as they did, of paramount authority in the Church. 
Says Lactantius, who could not of course have had 
any such object in making the remark as we have 
in quoting it, “So many texts did he enumerate, 
and that with such exactness, that he might seem 
to have been at some time a believer.” Every 
individual criticism of his, of this kind, recognised 
by his Christian opponent as being made upon a 
text which Christians owned, was another proof, 
from the most satisfactory source, that the books 
which we now receive, and no other, were the 
books then held in universal reverence by dis- 
ciples. 

J am to speak of but one more antagonist of 
Christianity during the period of its early struggles. 
In the fourth century its worldly condition and 
prospects, if such an expression be allowable, were 
changed. It had forced itself into reception with 
the unpretending mass of the people of the vast 
Roman empire, carrying a sensible improvement of 
manners, and elevation of society, in its train. It 
had entered the schools of philosophy, and occupied 
with a new strain of grave and attractive eloquence 
their high places of instruction. It had seated 
itself in the chambers of imperial council; and at 
length, in the person of Constantine, it had ascend- 
ed the throne of the Cesars. But that place was 
not to be yielded to it without another conflict. 

Vor. I. 1 


82, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


Paganism was still tenacious of its doomed life. 
Julian, the nephew of Constantine, and his succes- 
sor in the purple at the third remove, made another 
resolute attempt to suppress Christianity by his in- 
fluence and authority, and to refute it by his argu- 
ments. As a writer against that religion, to say 
nothing of his imperial rank, his name is to be 
mentioned along with those of Celsus, Porphyry, 
and Hierocles, as one of the most conspicuous of 
the first four centuries. 

The character of Julian is one of those, occasion- 
ally occurring in history, concerning which the most 
irreconcilable opinions are expressed by different 
parties of such as from their position might be sup- 
posed competent to form a trustworthy judgment. 
The Pagan writers of his own and the following 
times are lavish of commendations of him, as com- 
bining all qualities suitable for example and com- 
mand; while the Christians, under a bias perhaps 
equally natural, saw little in him but what went to 
characterize a cunning, obstinate, and active de- 
votee to the falsehoods of the old religion. He is 
the hero of the modern historian of the “ Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire,” who, though too skilful 
to provoke incredulity by representing him as fault- 
less, takes manifest delight in depicting him as 
well-nigh the model of a just, valiant, wise, and 
philosophical patriot prince. The bias under which 
Gibbon viewed his character is as evident as that 
of the writers hostile to Christianity near the Em- 
peror’s own time, but not so consistent and reason- 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 83 


able as theirs; for the philosophical enemy to all 
religion should have been as much offended by the 
bigoted devotion of Julian to the Pagan fables, as 
by what he esteemed the bigoted devotion of the 
opponents of Julian to the equally fabulous Chris- 
tian faith. But the modern skeptic easily over- 
looked the superstitions of the ancient Pagan votary, 
in his sympathy with the objects of the sworn foe 
of the religion of Jesus; and the imagination of 
the enthusiastic scholar was taken captive by the 
ostentations of one, who, through his reign of 
eighteen months, professed to hold the straiming 
forces of the Roman empire with a never-slackened 
rem, while his mind and time were chiefly em- 
ployed with spiritual contemplations, and the ele- 
gant pursuits of letters and philosophy. 

A cool survey of the character of Julian rejects 
the estimate of his partial historian. The Emperor 
was one of that not small class of men, who possess 
extraordinary qualities, without possessing them 
in that well-proportioned combination, in that union 
with others equally or more important, or under 
the control of that sound wisdom and those high 
motives, which are necessary to justify an ascription 
to them of the rare character of greatness. Might I 
be permitted to have recourse, for what may seem, 
at first view, a singular analogy, to our own New- 
England history, I would hazard the remark, that 
Julian seems to me a sort of young Cotton Mather 
inarmour. He had courage and energy, no doubt ; 
great love of learning, activity of mind, and 


84 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


powers of application and acquisition. On the 
other hand, he was restlessly ambitious ; childishly 
vain; superstitious to a madness; pedantic and 
ostentatious, in his own whimsical way, to a folly. 
What were called his temperance and aversion to 
luxury, though unquestionably real as habits, would 
be better described as a parade of those austerities 
and mortifications, which, witnessed in men whom 
luxury solicits, never fail of their reward m the 
flattering amazement of the undiscerning vulgar. 
He was stained neither with libertinism nor with 
blood, at a time when for a prince not to be both a 
murderer and a debauchee was a singularly reputa- 
ble thing. He even resembled the extraordinary 
person, to whom I have ventured to compare him, in 
a certain grotesque and fantastic humor, — not to 
call it wit, — of which one hesitates whether most to 
find fault with the temper or the taste. His life was 
all an exhibition; and if any thing like the speech 
related by Gibbon, on the authority of Ammuianus, 
his friend and biographer, to have been addressed 
by him to his friends and officers, after his mortal 
wound, was actually pronounced by him, it was 
put the last fitting scene of a pompous spectacle. 
Indeed, the historian suggests, without appearing to 
be himself struck with the peculiarity of the inti- 
mation as affording a commentary on the charac- 
ter which he extols, that the elaborate oration, 
said to have been pronounced by the Emperor on 
his death-bed, had been previously composed.* 


* History of the Decline and Fall, &c. chap. 24, note 95. 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 85 


With all its brilliancy and force, the submis- 
sion of a mind like that of Julian to Christianity, 
would have been an exceedingly equivocal homage 
to that religion. Considering his own tenden- 
cles and the circumstances of his early life, it 
remains no mystery how he was repelled from 
it. His family had fallen victims to the jealous 
cruelty of the house of Constantine; and the 
inexpiable wrongs which he resented, from the 
first sovereign disciples to Christianity, naturally 
led him to hate the religion which they so un- 
worthily professed. ‘The methods, adopted by an 
unskilful policy to tame his chafed spirit, did but 
exasperate, if not strengthen it, the more. He was 
placed, under a watch of vexatious and mortifying 
strictness, in the hands of Christian teachers, to be 
reared as an ecclesiastic; and at twenty years of 
age he was in orders as a reader in the church 
of Nicomedia. His studies, pursued with a well- 
feigned zeal, had at once nourished his antipathy to 
the faith, which, as he believed, was designed to be 
used to fetter and degrade and spoil him of his 
birthright, and given him preparation for such 
championship against it as mere ignorance of it 
could never execute. Meanwhile the Pagan so- 
phists saw their advantage. ‘They watched the dis- 
content of the youth who might one day sway the 
destinies of Rome and of the world, and by well- 
devised addresses to his master-passions, especially 
by applications to that vanity through which he 
was so singularly susceptible of influence, they suc- 


86 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


ceeded in making him their own. At twenty years 
of age, Julian was already a fanatical devotee to 
the Pagan faith; though for ten years longer, and 
till he was above the fear of consequences, he con- 
cealed his apostasy, from all but a few favored 
friends, with a severe dissimulation. Thus long, to 
use the language of Gibbon, “as soon as he had sat- 
isfied the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, 
at the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned, 
with the impatience of a lover, to burn his free and 
voluntary incense on the domestic chapels of Jupi- 
ter and Mercury.”* The kind of flattery with 
which he had been plied into this state of exalta- 
tion, and the nature of the exercises of his own 
erratic mind, prepared for them by his courses of 
fasts and vigils, may be inferred from the account 
of his friend, the orator Libanius. “Julian,” says 
he, “lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods 
and goddesses ; they descended upon earth to en- 
joy the conversation of their favorite hero; they 
gently interrupted his slumbers by touching his 
hand or his hair; they warned him of every im- 
pending danger, and conducted him, by their in- 
fallible wisdom, in every action of his life; and he 
had acquired such an intimate knowledge of his 
heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice 
of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of 
Apollo from the figure of Hercules.” + 


* Mistory of the Decline and Fall, &c. chap. 28. (juxta not, 29.) 
t Ibid. (juxta not. 26.) 


THE EMPEROR. JULIAN. 87 


It was, of course, a darling object with Julian to 
restore the ascendency of the lately discredited 
polytheism of the Roman state. His eulogists 
extol the moderation of his exercise of the imperial 
authority to that end. It is not at all necessary to 
our purpose to question that this clemency, to the 
degree that it can be made out, was a dictate of the 
better part of the Emperor’s nature; though it is 
plain, that mere considerations of policy would 
have prompted to the same course; for, — not to 
say that the violent forms of persecution had been 
fully tried by his predecessors, and that not only 
without avail, but to the manifest advantage of 
what they had aimed to oppress, —it was out of the 
question to attempt a repetition of such cruelties, 
when Christianity had lately been, and, but for 
accident in the imperial succession, would now be, 
in a condition to proscribe the temples; and when 
the camps, the cities, the senate, and the schools 
were filled with Christian professors. On the other 
hand, it could have been no very honest, — at any 
rate, no very enlarged or consistent, — purpose of 
toleration, which, while it professed to exempt 
Christians from any forfeiture, by reason of their 
profession, of life, limb, or estate, excluded them 
from civil and military trusts, laid them and their 
youth under social disabilities (as by excluding 
them from instruction in the schools of literature 
and philosophy), and did not scruple to avail itself 
of opportunities to injure the religion by fixing on 
plausible pretexts of some other offence in its pro- 


88 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


fessors. ‘The sort of address, if so it is to be called, 
with which this was done, well illustrates the sin- 
eular character we are considering. ¢T think it 
absurd,” says Julian in one of his decrees, ‘(for 
such as explain the works of Homer, Hesiod, De- 
mosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, and 
Lysias, to contemn the gods whom they honored. 
Still, though I think it to be absurd, | do not com- 
mand that they should change their sentiments for 
the sake of their pupils. But I give them their 
choice ; either not to teach what they do not think 
correct; or, if they will teach, that they first teach 
and satisfy their pupils, that neither Homer, nor He- 
siod, nor any one of those whom they have hitherto 
condemned for impiety, ignorance, and error con- 
cerning the gods, is what they have represented. 
..... If they think that those writers are in error 
as to the holy gods, then let them go rather to the 
churches of the Galileans, and there explain Mat- 
thew and Luke, whose disciples you are, and ac- 
cordingly influence others to abstain from the sacred 
rites. I-wish, as you would say, that your ears and 
your tongue may be regenerated, as to those things 
which I wish that I, and all that love me, may 
always take part in.”* The following is In a 
strain still more characteristic of the dexterous and 
facetious prince. “The members of the Arian 
church,” he says, “being pampered with riches, 
have assailed the followers of Valentinus, and have 
ventured on such things at Edessa, as should not 


* Julian. Imperat. Epist. ad Jamblich. (Opp. Edit. Paris. pp. 303 — 307.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 89 


take place in a well-regulated city. Therefore, 
since they are so commanded by their most admi- 
rable law, that they may the more easily arrive at 
the kingdom of heaven, we, to help them in this 
endeavour, have ordered all the money of the church 
of Edessa to be taken away, and given to the 
soldiers, and that its estates be annexed to our 
domain; that, being poor, they may become dis- 
creet, and may not be deprived of the kingdom of 
heaven, which they aim at.”* The insult here 
perhaps gave as much satisfaction to the writer, as 
the injury. It is not unlikely that to the witty, but 
not avaricious, Emperor, the irony may have even 
recommended the confiscation. 

Whether, however, the treatment which Chris- 
tianity received from Julian as a magistrate was 
more or less harsh, he did not confine to this his 
endeavours for its suppression. ‘ He employed him- 
self,” says Libanius, “during the long nights of the 
winter season, [before his fatal expedition for the 
conquest of Persia, that is, of the winter of 362 — 3,] 
upon an argument against those books which rep- 
resent the man of Palestine as God, and the son of 
God.” + It was written in Greek, the language 
which Julian, from his Asiatic education, commonly 
used, and, —as all the numerous references to the 
work, by friends and foes, agree, (for it has perish- 


“Julian. Imp, Epistola ad Hecebolum. (pp. 307, 308.) 
+ As cited by Socrates. Hist. Eccles. Lib. iii, cap. 23. (p. 200. Edit. 
Cantab.) 
Vou. II, 12 


90 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


ed,) — was of considerable elaboration and extent, 
consisting of seven books, as Jerome says, * or of 
three, according to Cyril, t those fathers having re- 
gard respectively, as would appear, to two different 
methods of dividing its contents. Cyril, who, in 
his confutation of it in a treatise in ten books 
written about seventy years later, quotes from it 
largely, complains of its great want of method, and 
the frequency of its repetitions. From the form 
which Cyril has adopted in his reply, it is reasona- 
ble to suppose that he has given us the substance 
of Julian’s argument. The reply is m a dialogue, 
in which Cyril represents Julian as successively 
stating his objections, though occasionally Cyril 
says that he states them for him in an abridged 
form; and after the statement of each follow the 
comments which the father makes upon it. 

We naturally turn to it with a peculiar kind of 
interest. A royal author, if any author, feels him- 
self above criticism, and will say with freedom 
whatever he can persuade himself may be said with 
any degree of justice. A royal controvertist will 
not consent to be worsted for want of any materi- 
als, which pains or money can command, to sustain 
his reasonings. It is supposable, that there might be 
facts, bearing on the discussion, scarcely within the 
reach of any means possessed by a private scholar 
like Porphyry or Celsus, which yet would not escape 


* Hieron. Epist. 84. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 928.) 
{ Cyril. contra Julian. Imp. Lib. i. (p. 3. Edit. Aubert.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 91 


the inquiries of one who could apply the resources of 
the Roman empire to collect the topics for his in- 
genuity to use. The danger would rather be, that, 
the Emperor’s purpose to signalize himself as a 
disputant once known, there would be those who 
would not hesitate to have recourse to fraud, in 
order to contribute to the triumphs of his logic. 
At all events, whatever Julian, in his position, could 
not find to say by way of discrediting the authority 
of Christianity, it is fair to presume was not to 
be found. What he has said to that effect, with 
his temper, his freedom, his Christian and philo- 
sophical education, and his means of knowledge of 
all that could advance his purpose, it is fair to pre- 
sume was all that was to be said. 

But, in point of fact, it is clear that the work of 
Julian owed all the consideration which it enjoyed 
to the station of its writer. The master of so many 
legions could not reason feebly. There was force 
in the conclusions, if there was none in the process. 
The accounts we have of his treatise show it to 
have added nothing to the arguments of Celsus and 
Porphyry, beyond some further illustrations under 
the same heads, which prevented him from appear- 
ing as a mere copyist, and which his youthful initia- 
tion in Christianity prepared him to supply. He 
abounded, even more than they, in injurious appeals 
against the faith to popular prejudice, a method of 
assault for which his sarcastic vein gave him a pe- 
culiar aptness, and which would be the more effi- 
cient and wounding, as being dealt from such an 


92 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


exalted quarter. He affected to designate the 
Christians by the contemptuous title of Galileans, 
and is even said by some of the ecclesiastical 
writers to have’ issued an edict that they should be 
so called. * Sometimes his reproaches are serious 
and vehement, as where he says, “This sect of 
Galileans ..... esteem nothing to be good and 
valuable, that is taught by us Greeks, or by the He- 
brews, disciples of Moses ; but, collecting whatever 
is bad in both, they have taken atheism from the 
Jewish absurdity, and a wicked dissolute life from 
our carelessness and indifference. And this they 
call a most excellent religion.”t And again; 
“You miserable people refuse to worship the 
shield that the great Jupiter, or father Mars sent 
down, ..... and you worship the wood of the 
cross, and make signs of it upon your foreheads, 
and fix it upon your doors. Shall we for this hate 
the more intelligent, or pity the more simple and 
ignorant of your sect, who, following you, ..-.-- 
leave the immortal gods, and betake themselves to 
a dead Jew?’ T 

Sometimes, more true to his temperament, his 
vein is bantering and jocose. Thus, commenting 
on the words of Paul, “Ye are washed, ye are 
sanctified, in the name of Jesus Christ,” he says, 
ss Yousee ....> they had been sanctified, having 


_ *Gregorii Nazianz. Oratio Tertia. § 73. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 81. Edit. 
Paris.) 
t Cyril. contra Julian, Lib. ii. (p. 48.) t Ibid. Lib. vi. (p. 194.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 93 


been scoured and cleaned with water, which pen- 
etrates even to the soul. Yes, baptism, which 
cannot cure ..... the gout, nor the dysentery, 
iis 2 takes away adulteries, extortions, and all other 
sins of the soul.””* [tis on the occasion of a similar 
taunt in a still extant work of Julian, that the im- 
patient Bentley exclaims, ‘He, Julian, to laugh at 
expiation by baptism, whose whole life after his 
apostasy, was a continued course of washings, purga- 
tions, expiations, with the most absurd ceremonies ; 
addicted to the whole train of superstitions, omens, 
presages, prodigies, spectres, dreams, visions, augu- 
ries, oracles, magic, theurgic, psychomantic ; whose 
whole court in a manner consisted of haruspices, 
and sacrificuli, and philosophers as silly as they; 
..... who, if he had returned victor out of Persia 
(as his very friends jested on him,) would have ex- 
tinguished the whole species of bulls and cows by 
the number of his sacrifices !”’ + 

Yet sometimes the hasty Emperor could so far 
forget himself as. to contradict all this calumnious 
levity, and do better justice to the good men whom 
he had thus ventured to revile. ‘Why do we not 
attend,” he says, in a letter to the high-priest of 
Galatia, ‘“‘to what has been the chief cause of the 
spread of impiety, humanity to strangers, care in 
burying the dead, and that holiness of life, which 
they so ostentatiously display ; all which things I 


* Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. vii. (p. 245.) 
t Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. § 43. (p. 24.) 


94, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


desire to have our people observe. It is a shame 
for the impious Galileans to relieve not only their 
own people, but ours also, and that our poor 
should be neglected by us, and be left helpless and 
desitite.<) 5 

It is this greater abundance of his raillery against 
Christians and their faith, which chiefly distin- 
guishes the work of Julian from the earlier works 
with the same design. In the accounts of it, and 
extracts from it, which remain, is found no topic of 
argument whatever, new to those who are acquainted 
with the treatises of Celsus and Porphyry; and none, 
I think, is urged with greater force than by those wri- 
ters, except that, as has been remarked, the amount 
of criticism of the contents of both the Old and the 
New Testament is greater. It contains a variety 
of remark relating to the Jewish religion rather than 
the Christian, though designed to wound the latter 
through the sides of the former.t It urges that 
the God of the Jews, and thus of the Christians, 
was, according to the authorized representations 
of his character, only a local and national deity ; Tf 
though elsewhere, with singular inconsistency, it 
insists, that the Jewish divinity and the Christian 
were differently represented, the one as subsisting 
im one person, the other as in three.§ It repeats the 
question, why, if such a revelation as that of Chris- 


* In a letter to Arsacius, high-priest of Galatia, preserved by Sozomen. 
Hist. Eccles. Lib. v. cap. 16. (p. 204. Edit. Cantab.) 

} Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. v, (pp. 152, 168,176.) Lib. vii. (pp. 218, 224.) 

} Ibid. Lib. iii. pp. 100, 106. § Ibid. Lib. ix. (p. 291.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 95 


tianity was ever to be made, it should have been 
delayed so long.* It professes to expose the 
impropriety of the application of various Jewish 
prophecies to the Messiah and his faith.+ And, 
finally, it undertakes to point out incongruities and 
discrepancies of statement in single passages of the 
New Testament. t 

Compared with the treatment of the same topics 
by the other writers of the same class whom we 
have already particularly examined, there is no 
novelty in any of these forms of argument, as 
urged by Julian, requiring any thing to be added to 
the remarks to which they have already led. On 
the other hand, Julian, like his predecessors in the 
same walk,—though to less purpose, on account of 
his later age,—has fulfilled an office the furthest 
possible from his intentions, in bringing a contribu- 
tion to our evidence of the universal reception by 
Christians, in his day, and for an indefinite time 
before it, of the Gospel history and its records, as 
Wwe now possess them. Every reference of his, 
with whatever unfriendly intent, to events con- 
nected with the first publication of our religion, and 
to the contents of its sacred books, is a new assur- 
ance to us of that unanimity of assent to them, by 
Christians in his time and before, which carries us 


* Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. iii. (p. 106.) 

t Ibid. Lib. viii. p. 253. Hieron. in Hoseam, xi. 1 (Tom. III. p. 78.) 

¢ Hieron, in Mat. i. 16, (Tom. III. p. 186.) ix. 9. (p. 616.) Cyril. contra 
Julian. Lib. vi. (p. 213.) 


96 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


back to the reality of those events, and the authen- 
ticity of those writings, for a reasonable explanation 
of its cause. Julian also expressly specifies the wri- 
tings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, and 
this in the peculiar manner of giving a general state- 
ment of his view of a portion of their contents, * 
thus showing the acquaintance with them, which 
he had been at pains to acquire, as with the au- 
thentic record of the belief of Christians, and dis- 
tinctly waving any dispute respecting that all-im- 
portant topic of the controversy. 

If some things, already said, will be repeated, 
others, which I have passed over, will be supplied 
in the words of the concise summary given by the 
excellent Lardner, of his observations on various 
parts of the works of Julian. “Julian has borne,” 
says that writer, ‘a valuable testimony to the his- 
tory, and to the books, of the New Testament. He 
allows that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, 
at the time of the taxing made in Judea by Cyre- 
nius; that the Christian religion had its rise, and 
began to be propagated, in the times of the emperors 
Tiberius and Claudius. He bears witness to the 
genuineness and authenticity of the four Gospels of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Acts of the 
Apostles ; and he so quotes them as to intimate that 
they were the only historical books received by 
Christians as of authority, and the only authentic 
memoirs of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and of the 


t Cyri!. contra Julian. Lib. x. (p. 327.) 


THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 97 


doctrine preached by them. He allows their early 
date, and even argues for it. He also quotes, or 
plainly refers to, the Acts of the Apostles, and to St. 
Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, and 
the Galatians. He does not deny the miracles of 
Jesus Christ, but speaks of him as having healed the 
blind, the lame, and demoniacs, as having rebuked 
the wind, and walked upon the waves of the sea. 
He endeavours indeed to diminish these works, but 
LIN Valiy MP aeahe She So that, upon the whole, he has unde- 
signedly borne witness to the truth of many things 
_recorded in the books of the New Testament. He 
aimed to overthrow the Christian religion, but has 
confirmed it. His arguments against it are perfectly 
harmless, and insufficient to unsettle the weakest 
Christian. He justly excepts to some things intro- 
duced into the Christian profession by the late pro- 
fessors of it in his own time, or sooner. But he 
has not made one objection of moment against the 
Christian religion, as contained in the genuine and 
authentic books of the New Testament. ”’* 
Having thus, in this and the four preceding 
Lectures, attempted an account of the controversy 
respecting the divine origin of Christianity, during 
the first four centuries, while it was forcing its way 
to the place of the religion of the civilized world, I 
am in my next Lecture to introduce a survey of the 
modern controversy on the subject, beginning soon 


* Testimonies of Ancient Heathens. Chap. 46. § 4. (Vol. LV. pp. 841, 342.) 
Vo. II, 13 


98 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. 


after the time when the Protestant Reformation 
both gave a degree of license to such discussions, 
and turned the minds of men to a re-examination of 
the grounds of their faith. And the first writings 
on the subject, which I shall have occasion particu- 
larly to notice, will be those of the earliest and 
most respectable of the English Deists, Lord Her- 
bert of Cherbury. 


LECTURE "XPV. 


RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY IN MODERN TIMES. 


In preceding Lectures I have attempted an ac- 
count of the course of the controversy respecting 
the divine origin of the religion of Jesus, down to 
the time of its secure establishment, in the fourth 
century, as the religion of the Roman empire, that 
is, of the civilized world. One or two remarks, by 
way of retrospect of the ground already passed 
over, may well be made before we proceed to other 
stages of the discussion. 

In the first place, we have seen, that points which 
have been diligently contested by modern unbe- 
lievers, as being, what in truth they are, intimately 
connected with the Christian argument, are not 
disputed by the unbelievers of ancient times, but on 
the contrary are fully allowed and argued upon, as 
if notorious and not admitting of question. The 
ancient infidels have dealt largely in attempts to 
foreclose any disposition to inquire into the claims 
of the religion, by slanders exposing it and its 


100 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


professors to extreme prejudice and odium. ‘They 
have objected to doctrines of Christianity, and 
otherwise criticized the contents of its authoritative 
books. ‘They have raised philosophical questions 
concerning it, as the questions of the fitness of its 
being revealed in a late age, and, in the first in- 
stance, toa single people. They have complained 
of applications, made by its advocates, of prophecies 
of Old Testament scripture to facts and doctrines 
of the New. ‘They have pretended such things as 
that Christianity did but re-publish old truths, and 
therefore was unnecessary; and that the humble 
and afflicted circumstances of the life and death of 
its author were unbecoming the dignity of the office 
which he claimed. These and other like methods 
of assault, heretofore specified, they have indus- 
triously used. But when they have been brought 
to the question of those miraculous works, to which 
Jesus appealed, as establishing his mission from the 
only Omnipotent, the Ruler of the Universe, they 
never met them with any thing like a distinct and 
circumstantial denial of their reality; but, from the 
urgency of the argument which those miracles 
supplied, they were fain to take refuge, first, in an 
hypothesis long ago exploded, and having of course 
now no place in the controversy, — that of their 
having been wrought by demoniacal or magical 
arts; and, secondly, in the assertion (attempted by 
the New Platonists to be sustained in the utterly 
ineffectual way remarked upon in my last Lecture), 
that similar works to those of Jesus had been per- 


IN MODERN TIMES. 101 


formed by others, — particularly by another, — to 
whom however the character of a divine messenger 
had not been ascribed. 

Further, and what I would still more insist upon, 
those writers do not undertake to contradict, but, 
on the contrary, are, in numerous specifications, our 
express witnesses to, certain facts so important in 
the Christian argument, that modern unbelievers, 
in the mere desperation (must it not be said? ) of 
their cause, and in mere defiance of history, have 
ventured to deny them; namely, the facts, first, of 
Christianity having been first preached by Jesus in 
Judea at the cost of his life, in the reign of 
Tiberius Caesar; and, secondly, of the authenticity 
of the records of his life as being the work of eye 
and ear witnesses of his deeds and discourses, and 
companions of such eye and ear witnesses, — per- 
sons therefore competent, from their position and 
circumstances, to know the truth of what they un- 
dertook to relate. 

These, which I have last specified, every one at 
all considerate of their bearings perceives to be 
most pregnant facts. It is easy, in some later time, 
to make up a story of pretended transactions of 
old date. But when we are sure that a narrative 
in our hands is the work of persons, who lived at 
the period, and in circumstances, to see and hear 
what they pretend to have seen and heard, provided 
it was real, then all that remains to be considered 
is the question of their honesty; and, if that can 
be made out, the evidence for the truth of what 


102 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


they have related is complete. Now the principal 
early antagonists of our religion have scarcely been 
surpassed in acuteness by any of their modern suc- 
cessors. ‘They knew perfectly well where to look 
for weak points in its proof, of which advantage 
could be taken to the best effect ; and, if they could 
have found such an exposed point where they 
would have first looked for it, thither they would 
not have failed to direct their efforts. That would 
have been no unsatisfactory skirmish about the out- 
posts, but a vigorous onset upon the citadel. 

Why did not Celsus, like Volney, affirm that 
Christianity was an allegory, and Jesus a personifi- 
cation of the Sun? Why did not Porphyry, like 
Bolingbroke, question whether Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John, wrote the books which go by their 
names? Was it because they overlooked the im- 
portance of such assertions, if they could be main- 
tained? Who, for an instant, can entertain such 
an imagination? No; but because they lived near 
to the time, and knew better; and they knew that 
others knew better too, and that it would be worse 
than labor lost to attempt to discredit such noto- 
rious facts. And, whatever other ground unbelief 
may now assume, is it not the very infatuation of 
skepticism to undertake at this day to dispute (con- 
cerning the authenticity of the Gospel records, for 
instance), what the enemies of the faith, living close 
to the time in question, did not dispute, while they 
could not but have seen the decisive importance of 
disputing it, provided they could have done so with 


IN MODERN TIMES. 103 


any prospect of success, —that is, provided they 
had not been fully assured of its truth ? 

And, to generalize this view a little, — though 
to carry it out, as one is tempted to do, would lead 
to quite too wide a range of remark, and my hearers 
will easily make new applications of the hint for 
themselves, — why is it that we no where find the 
ancient unbelievers fixing upon some one anti- 
Christian theory as the cause of that marvellous 
effect, the rise and spread of Christianity, and 
urging that consistently and vigorously as the true 
explanation of the phenomenon’ ‘This, with a 
fair share of facts on their side, — facts attainable, 
if ever attainable, at the time when they lived, — 
would have been a far more effective way of con- 
ducting the argument than any one they have ac- 
tually used. 

I] have asked, why they did not dispute the gen- 
uineness of the record, as being from the sources 
alleged, if that could with any pretence be done. 
To do this would have been to fasten a firm hold 
on the main question. Could the denial have been 
sustained, the main question would have been laid 
to rest. Could the denial have been plausibly 
urged, the main question would have been seriously 
embarrassed. But I ask again, If it was necessary 
to admit the authenticity of the books, why was not 
the historical truth of their contents, — of their 
narratives concerning Jesus, — distinctly and cir- 
cumstantially assailed? Something undoubtedly 
was true relating to the matter. If the books were 


104 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


really written by companions of Jesus, then one of 
two consequences followed. Either their contents 
were true, and then, as Christians maintained, 
Jesus had been accredited as a divine messenger ; 
or else their contents were not true, and this must 
have been either because the writers were impos- 
tors, intending a fraud, or mistaken, and themselves 
the subjects of one. Certainly .proof, either estab- 
lishing, or creating a reasonable presumption of, 
either the one or the other of these facts, — had 
either been a fact,— must have been within the reach 
of those who lived at the time, and soon after; and a 
sufficient exigency existed to cause it to be produced. 

It was, however, not produced. Whatever else 
we may find in the unbelieving writers near the 
time, we look in vain for any thing like a con- 
sistent theory of dissent; any thing like an ex- 
planation, upon natural grounds, of facts, which, 
unless they could be explamed on such grounds, 
were of a description to enforce the reception 
of Christianity as a supernatural communication. 
What we do find, on the part of opponents, is 
just what we might expect in the absence of all 
just ground of suspicion. One vaguely suspects 
one thing; another, another. Here is a criticism 
of the doctrine; there a reproach on its professors. 
Christianity had had some origin; it had had some 
history. If the pretended one was false, the true 
one could be told. Is such a counter story told, 
or attempted to be told, in those ancient works, to 
which it would belong? If so, where? If not, 


IN MODERN TIMES. 105 


why not’ ‘The Christian has his answer to this 
question. ‘The Christian history was not to be 
gainsaid. Is there any other account to be given 
of its not having been circumstantially gainsaid 
near the time? If there is, let unbelief present it. 

[ cannot pass from this part of the subject with- 
out another observation. One finds, in the books 
of Christian evidences, much and not too great 
stress laid on the rapid propagation of Christianity, 
and the great numbers, who, in near and distant 
countries, attested the power, with which, by the 
lips of its first preachers, it addressed its evidences 
to their senses and understandings, and its appeals 
to their hearts. But I know not whether I am 
so much impressed with the fact, however imposing, 
of its having so soon converted the masses of the 
Roman world, as with that of its having so soon 
converted and pervaded the intellect and cultiva- 
tion of the Roman world; an impression, I may 
add, which I have received with entirely new force, 
while engaged in a course of reading with refer- 
ence to the present discussion. Nothing can be 
finer, for all qualities in which they can pretend to 
merit, than the works of Pagan writers, — philoso- 
phers, orators, poets, —in the age preceding Jesus, 
and in his own. ‘They leave nothing to be desired, 
except the pervading spirit of a credible and effective 
religion, and of a pure and high morality. But the 
objects which they regard and exalt are worldly ; 
even the intellectual appetites which they feed be- 


long to a secondary class ; and on the highest sub- 
VoL. II. 14 


106 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


jects of contemplation there rests an oppressive 
doubt and darkness. A century or two passes, and 
we take up an entirely new set of books, the like 
of which the world had never before seen. ‘The 
pomp and polish of the Greek and Roman rhetoric 
are now found employed on no longer hesitating or 
distracted discussion of the highest themes of hu- 
man thought; but uttering the most lofty senti- 
ments of faith, devotion, fortitude, expansive and 
comprehensive love. Men, it is clear, —at least, 
some men, — have reached a loftier eminence of 
sentiment, speculation, and will. They have differ- 
ent thoughts of themselves and of their doom. All 
the superficial graces of their fathers’ days are still 
around them, but there is a new inspiration to their 
understandings, and a holier impulse in their hearts. 
Human nature is something graver, nobler, manlier, 
more august. It has worthier cares than before ; 
a more steadfast and indomitable purpose; a 
ereater extent of view; more stimulating objects of 
ambition. | 

And what had so speedily produced so remarka- 
ble a change in the civilization of a period, in some 
respects, the most civilized of all time? This had 
produced it. Between the two epochs to which I 
have referred, there had been born, in an obscure 
condition, a native of one of the most obscure 
provinces subjected to the Roman sway. Far 
away from the forums and the schools of Rome, 
where the predecessors of those who were present- 
ly to count it their highest pride to spread the 


IN MODERN TIMES. 107 


triumphs of his name, were thinking of nothing so 
little, as of what he or any other Galilean might be 
doing, he had for a short time preached his doc- 
trine, and done his works, and instructed a few poor 
men to whom he designed to bequeath his charge, 
and then resigned himself to a felon’s death. Never, 
humanly speaking, was a cause more hopeless; yet 
never was known so magnificent a triumph. The 
twelve fishermen went about their work, and they 
did it after such a sort, as to make the contemptu- 
ous at first, and then reluctant and persecuting, 
world attend and listen. ‘They made their meek, 
but resolute and earnest, words go forth unto all the 
earth, their sound unto the end of the world. 
Strangest of all to say, they won over its genius, 
wisdom, accomplishments, and taste, while they 
emptied its temples, and alarmed its thrones; so 
that, in less than one hundred years after the death 
of Zebedee the boatman’s younger son, the ardent 
Tertullian, tramed in all the learning of his time, 
and eminent, indeed, among his Christian associates, 
but not unrivalled, was contributing the stores of 
his rich erudition to illustrate the superior worth of 
the wisdom which makes wise to salvation; and 
Minucius Felix, the distinguished advocate at the 
imperial tribunals, was pleading its claims in the 
forcible and polished periods of an eloquence so 
Ciceronian, as Cicero’s self would have scarcely 
desired to disown. Of such profound interest is this 
view, as to make it no less than an era in the life 
of the Christian scholar, when he first becomes 


108 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


acquainted with the best specimens of this class of 
authors. 

Christianity, through the severe examination and 
conflict of three hundred years, has risen, from its 
feeble origin, to be the controlling element of hu- 
man society. We dismiss here the consideration of 
its early struggles with unbelief, for they are now at 
an end. Infidelity has urged whatever it had to 
urge, and now the hardly contested victory is won. 
No other of those movements, of which we have 
undertaken a survey, took place for more than a 
thousand years. Christianity, like other blessings, 
once bestowed by Providence, was committed for 
custody and use to human discretion and faithful- 
ness, which, in this instance, as in so many others, 
proved not sufficiently true to their trust. ‘The 
union of spiritual with temporal power, adverse in 
so many respects to the interests of our religion, 
suppressed any demonstrations of unbelief, if such 
demonstrations would otherwise have been made. 
But this circumstance cannot be supposed to de- 
prive modern inquirers of any means of arriving at 
the truth upon the subject, inasmuch as, in respect 
to adverse facts, four centuries had afforded ample 
opportunity to produce all which could be found of 
that description, and what these could not find could 
scarcely be open to the discovery of any later pe- 
riod; and, in respect to mere philosophical objec- 
tions, the speculations of modern times may be sup- 
posed competent to present all likely to be brought 
eut in any discussions, however free they might 


IN MODERN TIMES. 109 


have been, of the Middle Ages. The circumstances 
of the case do not permit us to look for formal 
demonstrations of unbelief, in modern times, to any 
period anterior to that of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion; and, in fact, we find no set argument of this 
description till nearly a hundred years since the date 
of that movement, when Edward, Baron Herbert 
of Cherbury and of Castle Kerry in Ireland, pub- 
lished in 1624, the last year of James the First, his 
treatise ‘“* De Veritate,”? On Truth. 

Before that time, skepticism had either taken 
counsel of its fears, and been silent, or, if it had 
appeared, in any way to force itself upon attention, 
had been immediately quieted by violence. Says 
Hallam, in his “ Introduction,” “The extreme su- 
perstition of the popular creed, the conversation of 
Jews and Mahometans, the unbounded admiration 
of Pagan genius and virtue, the natural tendency of 
many minds to doubt, and to perceive difficulties, 
which the schoolmen were apt to find everywhere, 
and nowhere to solve, joined to the irreligious 
spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy, especially as 
modified by Averroes, could not but engender a se- 
cret tendency towards infidelity, the course of which 
may be traced with ease in the writings of those ages. 
Thus the tale of ‘The Three Rings’ in Boccacio, 
whether original or not, may be reckoned among the 
sports of a skeptical philosophy.” * And he goes on 
to give a list, from another author, of the writers of 


“Hallam’s Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, 
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cente Vol, 1. pp. 189, 190. 


110 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


some defences of Christianity in the same century, 
which, obscure as they are and apparently were, 
would not have been produced, had not some exist- 
ing state of opinion been thought to call for them. 

Early in the following century, the school of 
Padua incurred the suspicion of infidelity; and a 
work on the immortality of the soul by Pompona- 
tius, its most distinguished professor, who however 
constantly denied any design to impeach the author- 
ity of revelation, was publicly burned at Venice.* 
The same, according to Bayle, in his Dictionary, 
was, in the year 1574, the fate not of the book but 
of the author, in the case of one Vallée, who had 
proclaimed his unbelief in a small pamphlet; about 
which time also, says the same writer in his article 
upon Father Viret, the successor of Calvin at 
Geneva, that reformer spoke of being acquainted 
with some persons, who called themselves by the 
peculiar name of Detsts, professing to believe in a 
God, but denying that he had made a revelation 
through Jesus Christ. Of Montaigne I am hereaf- 
ter briefly to speak, and of the sense and restrictions 
under which he is properly named in this connexion. 
His imitator and copyist, Charron, had also a certain 
equivocal standing in the infidel ranks. Vanini, 
an Italian, in a treatise published at Paris, in 1616, 
avowed his disbelief in all religion, a boldness which 
he expiated at the stake. { | 

The first formal expositions of infidel argument 


* Hallam’s Introduction, &c. Vol. I. p. 435. +t Ibid. Vol. ILI. p. 338. 
t mh TRO 


IN MODERN TIMES. 111 


in modern times were, as has been remarked, those 
of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. But, before pro- 
ceeding to speak of the contents of his works, we 
shall do well to pause again, to attend to two gen- 
eral considerations having reference to the whole 
modern controversy. In the first place, I observe, 
that the Christian argument cannot, with any rea- 
sonable mind, be allowed to labor under any pre- 
jJudice, arising from the fact, that, after having been 
so long laid at rest, it has been revived, since the 
Protestant Reformation, and at intervals ever since 
has been brought before the public notice. What 
else could have been expected? How could it 
have been otherwise, on the supposition that all the 
claims of our religion were perfectly well-founded ? 
At the period of the Reformation, the mind of 
Christendom, awaking from the torpor of a long 
unquestioning submission to authority, had to ask 
itself, what was the evidence of all that it had 
received as truth. Its doubts, as far as doubts 
came to be entertained, respecting the divine origin 
of the religion of Jesus, were not tokens of a defi- 
ciency in the evidence of that fact, but only tokens 
of its ignorance of the evidence which existed. 
For ages it had indolently acquiesced in some opin- 
ions, Which now, under other influences, it had 
come to abandon or to distrust. How natural, how 
reasonable, how right, that it should proceed to 
re-examine the foundations of all the opinions 
which it had most reverently cherished. 

The reformer, while he rejected Romanism, 


112 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


reasonably asked (if he was a reasonable man), 
whether he ought not, at the same time, to reject 
Christianity, with which Romanism had been hith- 
erto identified. 'The Romanist, while he reviewed 
the grounds of his own disputed faith, was invited 
to review those of that religion of Jesus, which his 
own profession was asserted to represent. ‘The 
decisions of antiquity, if they were considered, or 
if they were asserted, to be of uncertain authority 
in part, were again to be gone into, as a whole. 
The claims of a religion which assumed to control 
all the affairs, to mould the whole character, to 
present the highest objects to the hopes and the 
fears, of man, were not such as could summarily be 
disposed of. ‘That they had been admitted, was 
no good reason, under the altered circumstances, 
why they should be admitted still. ‘The question 
which they presented had always been weighty ; 
the new style of thinking which had come to 
prevail had given it a new extent and complica- 
tion. It was necessary now, in order to an intelli- 
gent and sincere conviction, that the traditional 
opinion should be surveyed anew in the lights of a 
reformed philosophy. Was it recommended or 
sustamed by, or could it be reconciled with, the 
principles of judgment approved by the re-awak- 
ened spirit of the age? 

These were questions, by no means, it is true, 
answered in the negative as soon as they were 
asked, but yet questions entitled to, and demand- 
ing, a reasonable reply. Considering how new, at 


IN MODERN TIMES. 118 


the period of which we speak, to the mass of think- 
ing men, was the question upon what solid grounds 
of evidence the divine origin of our religion could 
be shown to rest, and in what new relations, from 
the introduction of a different style of thinking, all 
questions required to be viewed, it is no matter of 
regret, certainly no matter of wonder, that a dis- 
position was manifested to look at it on all sides, 
and see whether it would bear a suspicious scrutiny. 
More than three hundred years passed, from the 
era of its first promulgation, before it satisfied and 
silenced its opponents. It is only two thirds of that 
period, since its claims have been a second time 
brought into question, under circumstances requir- 
ing the whole subject to be reviewed, with careful 
regard to its new and wide relations. Its claims 
ought not, under these circumstances, to be in the 
slightest degree prejudiced in our minds, by the 
knowledge that questions have been asked, and 
continue to be asked, concerning it. Those ques- 
tions ought to be asked, and to be answered. 
When they are asked, an occasion arises for their 
being answered. Many of them have been asked, 
and by the answer which has been given to them 
have been set at rest. As fast as others are in 
like manner disposed of, the controversy will be 
narrowed, till at length, as the process goes on, it 
may come to be dismissed. We are still in the 
midst of that process, which no one can reasonably 
wonder has occupied so much time. Much, that 


has been objected, has been so discussed that it is 
Vous it: 15 


114 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


no longer repeated ; or, at any rate, not so repeated 
as to excite attention or unsettle belief. If more 
remains to be done in the same way, still continually 
the range of infidel argument is reduced. And at 
all events, the fact, that, within the short time that 
this argument has had the opportunity of a hearing, 
it has not been entirely silenced, is nothing to war- 
rant any confidence in its soundness, or in the ex- 
tent of its resources. Whoever thinks, that, in the 
progress of the modern controversy, unbelief has 
as yet established any thing, may naturally pre- 
dict for it future triumphs. Whoever conceives, 
that, as often as it has specifically put forth its 
objections, it has been worsted, will be of opin- 
ion that it is destined to an ultimate total discom- 
fiture. And whoever does not perceive that it has 
made progress, since discussion became, as it is at 
present, entirely free, will not be disposed to re- 
gard the mere fact of its not having yet relinquish- 
ed the contest, as any presumption against the 
security of what it assails. 

The other remark which I have sie not out 
of place at this period of the discussion, when we 
are approaching a notice of some writers of great 
literary celebrity, is, that we cannot reasonably en- 
tertain any distrust whatever of the sufficiency of 
the evidences of Christianity, merely because of 
their having been rejected as insufficient by a num- 
ber of eminent men. Genius ,so commands our 
admiration, that we are very apt to trust it for 
what it has no particular capacity to do; and it is 


IN MODERN TIMES. 115 


a wrong, which we commonly practise on our own 
understandings, to allow their conclusions to be 
brought into a degree of doubt by the knowledge 
of their not being acquiesced in by one or another 
individual, of extraordinary merit in his own walk, 
or of superior general intelligence. It is a ques- 
tion that ought to be looked at, how far a man of 
good sense can allow himself to regard the proofs 
of our religion under any unfavorable bias, by rea- 
son of its having been rejected, for instance, by 
famous men like Voltaire or La Place, like Boling- 
broke or Hume. 

It might be said, that, if the number and 
weight of high intellectual authorities is to deter- 
mine the question, the great preponderance of such 
authorities is on the side of Christianity. But 
this, however undeniable in point of fact, | do not 
care to urge, preferring to invite attention to the 
inquiry, what degree of justness there is in the 
so general impression, that, because a man has 
extraordinary intellectual attributes, therefore his 
conclusions, — as his, —are entitled to peculiar 
consideration on the part of other minds. His argu- 
ments, like those of other persons, are entitled to 
consideration ; and, because of his uncommon gifts, 
it is likely that his arguments may be so conceived 
and stated as to demand for themselves peculiar 
consideration. But that is not our question. In- 
fluence through an argument, come from what 
quarter it may, is of course a reasonable thing. 
Our present inquiry is, concerning the reasonable- 


116 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


ness of influence through the reputation of the 
arguer. And as to this, the correctness of the 
following statements will not, I suppose, on reflec- 
tion, be thought liable to dispute. 

In the first place, the mere naked fact that an 
individual is great and famous does not entitle 
his decision upon this subject to any peculiar au- 
thority whatever. ‘The quality which comes into 
exercise in deciding this question is not imagina- 
tion, not wit, nor any thing else but simply a clear 
and sound judgment. The reputation, which, if 
any could, may give some pledge of a correct de- 
cision, is simply the reputation of a clear and sound 
judgment ; and this certainly is not an invariable 
adjunct of qualities that have conferred the highest 
fame, even if it be not in a degree inconsistent 
with them. Many, at least, of the most famous 
men, have won their renown through some idio- 
syncrasy of mind; and the genius which most 
dazzles has something of a dreamy, fantastic, ex- 
travagant, character ; it involves a certain tendency 
to exaggeration, such as forbids it to be an object 
of perfect trust. 

What I am here saying is no more than what is 
recognised as true in the common intercourse of 
life. For the very reason that a man is a genius, 
and commands our admiration, he may be the man 
to whom we will not give our confidence, nor intrust 
our business; our confidence, which can only be 
reposed in that quality which calmly seeks and 
sagaciously discerns the good and the true; our 


IN MODERN TIMES. 117 


business, which we cannot consent to hazard on the 
chances of some splendid caprice. Is there a man 
here, who, in a question that concerned his life or 
property, would desire to commit his case to a jury 
of geniuses? Instead of their possible oddities, 
extravagances, refinements, ingenuities, and _par- 
adoxes, should we not all prefer to await the 
judgment of a panel of discreet, unimaginative, 
straight-forward men? And if it be our opinion, 
thus evinced in transactions touching our common 
interests, that clear, sound sense, a quality that does 
not often win the highest fame, is the quality that 
does give the highest authority to a decision on a 
disputed question, there would seem to be no 
defensible reason why we should be in the least 
disturbed, as to our persuasion of the truth of 
Christianity, because of our knowledge of its hav- 
ing been rejected by this or that individual, distin- 
guished in the walks of philosophy or poetry, 
of eloquence or art. He may, it is true, be 
distinguished not only by his brilliant qualities, 
but also by the discerning good sense, which so 
far would entitle his determinations to respect. 
But that is by no means proved by the mere cir- 
cumstance, which has attracted us, of his being 
highly-endowed and famous ; and yet that simply 
is what we want to know, before we can regard 
the opinion with any peculiar respect or forbear- 
ance, on account of its being his. 

And when we know that the opinion in question 
is that of a sagacious man, we want still to know 


118 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY 


more. No man’s judgment, as such, is to be con- 
fided in, or deferred to, except so far as it is known 
to have been carefully exercised on the case in 
hand. Excellent as it may be, it is an excellent 
capacity, —no more,—till it has inquisitively 
searched out and deliberately looked at the facts 
that bear on a correct decision. ‘The truest judg- 
ment, if it be (as doubtless it may be) so false to 
itself as to act in ignorance or haste, may err ; 
and accordingly it is perhaps men of the best judg- 
ment, that are oftenest known, on further inquiry, 
to change their minds. ‘They erroneously supposed 
themselves to be already in sufficient possession of 
the facts; or their minds had, from circumstances, 
been occupied with some strong prepossession, 
which they had not given the proper attention to 
analyze and define; and further investigation has 
led or may lead them to an opposite result. 

When a man then, even of that character, has de- 
clared himself against our religion, in order for the 
fact to be of material interest to us, we want to know 
at what stage of inquiry respecting it he stands. 
If he has given much of the attention of his ac- 
knowledged good judgment to other things, to law, 
to medicine, to mechanism, to statesmanship, it is 
not likely that he will change his opinions respect- 
ing them; and those opinions are entitled, as his, to 
our regard. If he has not given much of the can- 
did and careful attention of his acknowledged 
good judgment to the facts of Christianity, then, 
before we trust him, we will wait till he has. 


IN MODERN TIMES. 119 


When he has, it is likely that he may change his 
opinions. At any rate, his decisions, made up on 
such a basis, are meanwhile of no great worth. 

And, once more, should the strongest case possi- 
ble occur, should some individual of unquestiona- 
ble general good sense and impartiality be known 
to have given studious attention to those facts, 
should we be unable to point out any important 
element disregarded by him, or any unfortunate 
bias in the given case to warp his characteristic 
rectitude of mind, and yet should he end in re- 
jecting our faith, — should such a complication of 
improbabilities occur (as 1 know not that it ever 
did), still I submit that all it could reasonably do 
would be to occasion us great surprise ; it could not 
reasonably shake our own conviction. We should 
only have to say, that there must have been some 
sinister influence that we cannot detect, — which 
certainly might well be, — or that, in short, it was 
a case which we could not pretend to explain. 
But to allow the principle, that any diffidence is to 
be felt respecting the correctness of a conclusion 
of our own, because, in some high quarter, it is 
not received, would be to introduce a universal 
Pyrrhonism into all matters of speculation and of 
conduct; and it would be alike a course which no 
considerate man can justify, and no practical man 
adopts. 

Thus much I have thought it fit to say respect- 
ing the rightful weight of the mere authority of 
famous names, preparatory to a mention of some of 


120 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


the distinguished modern names of unbelief. The 
works of Lord Herbert present the most favora- 
ble specimen anywhere to be found of composi- 
tions of that class. He brought to the subject, 
what so many have not brought, a serious and 
devout mind. He belonged to the stern, manly, 
earnest age of England; to the age, in which 
Bacon was a little earlier, and Milton a little later ; 
to the time, when the race of triflers and mockers 
in his great country had not come. He wrote 
three books in Latin, relating to this controversy ; 
the first, entitled «On Truth,” which (an extraor- 
dinary fact, it may be thought) bears the license to 
print of the Bishop of London’s chaplain, and 
which did not obstruct the employment of its 
author in high political trusts, and his elevation to 
the peerage under Charles the First; the second, 
entitled ‘The Causes of Error,” to which was ap- 
pended a treatise “‘On the Religion of a Layman” 
(this I have never seen, and suppose there is no 
copy in this country) ; the third, which was posthu- 
mous, entitled “ ‘The Religion of the Gentiles.” 
Lord Herbert was not, as Hume and others have 
been, a disbeliever in the possibility of miraculous 
divine manifestation. On the contrary, he believed 
himself to have been the subject of a miracle, de- 
signed to encourage him to print his first work. 
He left in manuscript an autobiography, in which 
he says, that, after writing the treatise “On 
Truth,” containing views so sure to provoke oppo- 
sition and hostility, he was much exercised with 


LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 121] 


doubts whether he ought to publish it. “ Being 
thus doubtful in my chamber,” he writes, “ one fair 
day im the summer, my casement being open 
towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no 
wind stirring, I took my book ‘ De Veritate’? in my 
hands, and, kneeling on my knees, devoutly said 
these words; ‘O thou eternal God, author of this 
light which now shines upon me, and giver of all 
inward illuminations, I do beseech thee, of thine 
infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than 
a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough, 
whether I shall publish this book. If it be for thy 
glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from 
heaven. If not, I shall suppress it.’ I had no 
sooner spoken these words, but a loud, though yet 
gentle noise, came forth from the heavens, — for it 
was like nothing on earth, — which did so cheer 
and comfort me, that I took my petition as granted, 
and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon 
also I resolved to print my book. This, how 
strange soever it may seem, | protest before the 
eternal God, is true; neither am I any way super- 
stitiously deceived herein; since I did not only 
clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that 
ever | saw, being without all cloud, did, to my 
thinking, see the place from whence it came.” * 
There can be no reasonable doubt that he 
believed the reality of what he thus recorded; 
though, had there been occasion to make the 


*Leland’s View of the Principal Deistical Writers, &c. Vol. I. p. 24. 
Vou. II, 16 


12 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


statement public in his life-time, which it does 
not appear that he did, and had any danger been 
incurred by so doing, it may be questioned whether 
he would have felt justified in persisting in such a 
confident declaration of the certainty and distinct- 
ness of his memory.” It was a simple case of that 
not very uncommon phenomenon, a false percep- 
tion in a moment of high mental excitement; a 
perception, which there was nothing to enable him 
to correct, inasmuch as there was no other witness, 
no opportunity for one sense to review the testi- 
mony of another, and no sensible effect left behind 
by the momentary appearance, by which to try its 
reality. And the prayer preceding for such an 
object, the vague description of the noise, ‘“ loud 
and yet gentle, and like nothing on earth,” and the 
faint addition, that he did, ‘to his thinking,” see 
the place from whence it came, in a sky of unbroken 
blue, all betoken a state of physical sensibility and 
mental exaltation predisposed for the self-delusion 
which was experienced. It serves to illustrate the 
character of the man, pure, honest, and generous, but 
a metaphysical enthusiast and mystic, pampered, by 
the consciousness of lofty and somewhat original 
speculations, and by the habits of solitary musing 
to which they had led (for they were not matter for 
free conference with others), into the vanity of fan- 
cying himself the special favorite of that Heaven 
whose counsels he had succeeded to disclose. 

Lord Herbert’s work ‘On Truth,” so obscure in 
two respects that it is extremely difficult to under- 


LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 123 


stand its Latin, and still more so to grasp its meta- 
physics, does not distinctly introduce the subject of 
revealed religion till near its close. ‘The body of 
the book consists of an inquiry, into which it would 
lead us aside from our purpose to follow him with 
any minute survey, into the proper means of discern- 
ing and discovering truth. He starts from a series 
of seven axioms; 1. There is such a thing as truth ; 
2. It is coeternal, or coeval, with the things to 
which it relates; 3. It is universally diffused ; 
4. It is self-evident (an assertion this, which 
sounds more like a paradox than like an axiom) ; 
5. There are as many truths as there are differences 
in things; 6. The differences in things are made 
known to us by our inborn powers; 7. ‘There is a 
truth predicable of these truths (a proposition which 
so far from being self-evident as to its meaning, as 
a maxim should be, is not evident as to a meaning 
in any way).* 

Taking his departure from these points, the 
author goes on to distinguish truth mto the truth 
of the thing or object, the truth of the appearance, 
the truth of the perception, and the truth of the 
understanding. + In inquiries after truth, he says, 
three things are to be regarded; the object itself, 
the sense or faculty by which investigation respect- 
ing it is made, and the conditions of its relation to 
other things. t He then goes on to treat of the 
conditions of its existence; as, that the object of 
which it is affirmed should have a relation to our- 


* De Veritate, etc. pp. 8 — 11. t Ibid, p. 12. t Ibid. p. 18. 


124 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


selves; that it should be perceived under proper 
advantages of time, medium, distance, and situa- 
tion; that the senses should be sound, and that 
they should be directed to it.* He distributes 
human capacities into four divisions, natural in- 
stinct, internal perception, external sensation, and 
reason, through the channel of one or another of 
which every thing knowable must become known. t+ 

Under the head of instinctive truths he arranges 
the truths of religion, maintaiming that all we know 
or can know on that subject consists of certain uni- 
versally received notions, implanted in our minds by 
nature; and holding, as others have done, that the 
distinction of man from other animals consists not 
in reason, but in his essential capacity for religion. f 
What these universally received notions are, which 
make all direct revelation of them superfluous, and 
to which no direct revelation of other truths can be 
added, except for the individual himself to whom it 
is made, he goes on towards the end of the book 
to specify, as being these five; 1. That there is a 
supreme divinity; 2. That he ought to be wor- 
shipped ; 3. That a proper application of the facul- 
ues is the principal part of divine worship; 4. That 
sins ought to be expiated by repentance; 5. That 
there is a retribution of reward and punishment 
after this life.§ His posthumous work “On the 
Religion of the Gentiles”? was designed to show, 
that, overlaid and weakened by whatever errors, 


“De V eritate. pp..13 — 26. t Ibid. p. 37. 
t Ibid. p. 37 — 65. § Ibid. pp. 208 — 223, 


LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 125 


these truths were always held by the heathen 
nations in a competent degree of purity; a hope- 
less theme, on which however he expended great 
store of erudition. Of his remaining treatise on 
the subject, “ The Religion of a Layman,” | am 
unable, for the reason before mentioned, to speak. 
From the accounts of it, however, it appears to 
have been short, and to have added no material 
feature to the theory. 

If the account now given of the route by which, 
in his work on Truth, Lord Herbert would bring 
the reader to his own anti-Christian opinions, 
seems obscure, that is precisely one of the con- 
clusions to which I would conduct my hearers. It 
is impossible to feel tempted to any degree of con- 
fidence in the correctness of the views of this wri- 
ter, so far as depends upon the method of their de- 
fence, when one is invited to approach them through 
such a long, dark labyrinth of metaphysics; of 
metaphysics, too, treated in a language badly writ- 
ten by the author, and of very imperfect resources, 
at the best, for such a discussion. But what, in 
his treatise, is really material, in respect to the 
Christian controversy, stands so apart from its 
metaphysical introduction, as to admit perfectly 
well of a separate consideration, which certainly 
the theory of an alleged sufficiency of the Religion 
of Nature well deserves. About a century after 
Lord Herbert’s time, the same argument of the 
clearness and adequateness of a universal Natural 
Religion, and of the consequent needlessness of 


126 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


any such revelation as that of Christianity, was 
treated in a popular form, and with the addition of 
other related topics, by Tindal, in his work entitled 
‘“‘ Christianity as Old as the Creation ;” and, as re- 
marks on the latter writer would but lead to repeti- 
tions of what had been said on the former, if they 
were treated apart, I shall in this instance deviate 
from the order of time, and reserve what I have 
further to submit concerning Lord Herbert, in or- 
der to treat his works and that of Tindal together, 
as far as their course of argument is the same, in 
my next Lecture. 


LEG BUR | xa. 


DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


Tue writings of Edward Lord Herbert, whose 
treatise “On Truth” first appeared in 1624, and 
of Dr. Matthew Tindal, who published his work 
entitled “« Christianity as Old as the Creation ” in 
1730, contain that to which I venture to give the 
name of “the deistical & priort argument”. It is 
an argument, fairly entitled to that appellation, and 
not one of those mere collections of cavils and 
innuendoes, which, with a large class of readers, 
avail more in such a case than any course of rea- 
soning. It is a dezstical argument, as distinguished 
from general skepticism and from atheism. Both 
these writers firmly believed in the existence of 
a God, and in his absolute perfections; they 
planted themselves upon the ground of natural 
religion. And it is characteristically an & prior 
argument. These writers did not, like others, 
content themselves with the endeavour to show, 


128 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


that, in point of fact, a revelation had not been 
made by God through Jesus, or that there was not 
sufficient evidence of its having been made. ‘The 
topics belonging to this part of the discussion, they, 
particularly Tindal, have incidentally touched. But 
such was not the substance or main design of 
their works. 

The basis of argument with both was, the per- 
fections of the Deity and the circumstances of his 
world ; and from these they undertook to show the 
unreasonableness of the supposition, that such a 
revelation as that of Christianity had been or would 
be made. ‘This the one did in bad Latin, and with 
great show of metaphysical demonstration ; the 
other in clear and vigorous English, and in a far 
more popular form of address. The spirit of Lord 
Herbert was much more calm and devout, the 
manner of ‘Tindal more familiar and attractive. 
The latter has given prominence to one or two 
topics of argument additional to the topics urged by 
his predecessor in those two, out of his three works, 
which I have seen; but the course of reasoning of 
both belongs to an hypothesis so distinctively the 
same, as to make it altogether convenient to treat 
them together. As to method, that of Tindal was 
extremely irregular and discursive, his treatise being 
cast in the free shape of the dialogue ; that of Lord 
Herbert, as I have before had occasion to describe, 
consisted, after the fashion of his day, of a parade 
of maxims, not all of them certain as to their truth 
or even their meaning, and of inferences deduced 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 129 


from them by such circuitous and questionable pro- 
cesses, that to follow them is rather an exercise in 
logic than a way to obtain satisfaction respecting 
the question argued. But the following heads, 
though not formally stated, will be found by the 
attentive reader to cover the variety of considera- 
tions presented in these books, and indeed to ex- 
haust the hypothesis presented in them, all other 
matter being merely adventitious to what is em- 
braced in these four propositions; namely, 

1. A special divine communication of religious 
truth did not need to be made ; 

2. It could not be made; 

3. It ought not to be made ; 

4. Had it been made, it would not have been 
such as we have in Christianity. 

These four propositions, I say, will be found to 
cover, with the exception of some incidental sug- 
gestions, the various considerations presented in 
the works of Herbert and Tindal. ‘They compose 
that to which I have applied the name of the dezst- 
wcal & priort argument. As I have stated them, it 
will have been observed that the basis of the theory 
is, the perfections of God and the circumstances of 
his world. ‘These being such and such, it is said, 
it is unreasonable to suppose such a revelation to 
have been made, as that alleged to have been made 
in Christianity. In proceeding to examine this doc- 
trine, I have to bespeak the patient attention of my 
hearers to a dry discussion, as a discussion of such 


abstract principles must, I fear, unavoidably be. 
Vox, I. 17 


130 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


But it could not, with any justice to the main sub- 
ject, be passed over. 

I remark, at the outset, that, of these four propo- 
sitions into which [ have resolved the theory, two, 
—the first and last, — are such, that the unbe- 
lieving inquirer, provided he found that certain facts 
implied in them, or bearing upon them, could be 
established, might be justified in maintaining them 
with a degree of confidence. With respect to the 
two others, this is by no means equally true. A 
consistent believer in the perfections of God, as 
made known by natural religion, could not avoid 
feeling great diffidence, except in some extreme 
case, in deciding that God could not, or ought not, 
adopt a given course of proceeding ; inasmuch as 
he could not safely assure himself of being in pos- 
session of all the elements of the question. 

Of the propositions which I have represented as 
virtually constituting the theory of the works now 
under consideration, the first is, that a special divine 
communication of religious truth did not need to be 
made. ‘This I shall not now treat at large, having 
already done so in the third Lecture of my previous 
Course, in a manner which would cause any thing | 
could now say on the subject to be mostly repeti- 
tion. Whether or not there was a need, and an 
urgent need, of special divine interposition, at the 
time when Christianity announced itself, I freely 
grant to be one of the principal questions on which 
the decision of the ultimate question respecting the 
pretensions of Christianity must rest. If there was 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 13] 


no such need, I am prepared to admit that it was 
not consistent with the perfections of God that he 
should interpose by miracles. If we, on due 
inquiry, can see no such need, then I am prepared 
to admit that the presumption is against its exist- 
ence, and that the pretence of miracles becomes to 
us incredible. If we can see such a need, and in 
proportion as we see it to have existed and to have 
been urgent, it becomes credible and probable to 
our minds that God will take the appropriate 
method to provide for it. Give me his parental 
character, which natural religion does give, and, as 
a consistent believer in natural religion, I must be- 
lieve that he will do, at the fit time, whatever the 
good of his children may require. 

These are principles which I see not how the con- 
siderate professor of natural religion can gainsay. 
If the principles are so, then, how was the fact ? 
Was it or was it not true, at the time when Jesus 
published his religion, that there was needed such 
a new element in human society? This is a ques- 
tion which the Deist rightly asks, and concerning 
which the Christian ought to be resolved. 

If the need existed, of what nature was it? Of 
course, it was a want of religious knowledge; of 
religious motives; of an impulse to religious im- 
provement. Was there such a want? It is purely 
a question of fact, and history has a great many 
voices with which to answer it. At the time of 
the promulgation of Christianity, I will not ask, — 
though no less than this, in so many words, is 


132 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


asserted in these works,— whether men already 
had, through the notices of nature, a revelation 
‘absolutely perfect.”* I will ask very much less 
than this. Were men, if I may so speak, on the 
whole, in a good religious way? Did they in some 
good degree understand God? Did they love and 
serve him? With however imperfect obedience, 
yet were they in possession of such truth, as to 
afford a prospect, that, at some future time, with 
nothing done except by themselves for their re- 
covery, they would come to love and serve him? 
They who propose, like the writers now under our 
notice, to answer these questions in the affirmative, 
speak to the purpose, and have a right to a hearing. 
But, after all, what is the truth? Can they prove 
what they affirm ? 

Not to pause to insist on what would open too 
vast a subject, that the five points, specified by 
Lord Herbert as composing his system of an 
alleged universally received natural religion, would, 
if they were universally received, make a misera- 
bly imperfect and unsatisfactory religion compared 


* Christianity as Old as the Creation, Chap. 1. (p. 3.) ‘ If human 
reason cannot enable men to discern that God has given them a rule to 
govern their actions by, and what that rule is, they must be, if not as 
ignorant as brutes, in an everlasting state of skepticism and uncertainty, 
in all matters relating to religion; and would indeed be ina worse con- 
dition than those inferior animals, who have instinct always to direct them 
to the end for which they were severally made.” JIntrodu:tion to the 
Second Part of “ Christianity as Old as the Creation,” p. iii, ‘ Rea- 
son, whenever men consult it, will soon enable them to discover the being 
and perfections of God; what those duties are, which they owe to him and 
one another; and all those truths, which as rational creatures, they are 
capable of knowing.” Ibid. p. xii. 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 133 


with that of Jesus, is any thing in history more 
notorious than the contrary of their universal recep- 
tion, or even (which is an immensely different and 
smaller thing) their distinct, intelligent, and satis- 
fied reception by any single mind,— the most cul- 
tivated and philosophical, — of whose convictions 
we have any record? Is it, or is it not, true, — as 
I endeavoured to show in full on the previous occa- 
sion to which I have referred, and as has been 
largely shown by various others,— that, except 
among the Jews, there was scarcely a remnant in 
the world of so much as a true theology; that no 
where did there exist an effective persuasion of a 
retribution beyond the grave; that such religion as 
there was, was mostly a sentiment wholly apart 
from morality, or else (which to a shocking ex- 
tent is apparent) was hostile to it; and that, un- 
der these circumstances, human opinion and char- 
acter not only disclosed a deplorable perversion for 
the present, but revealed no promise of future re- 
form, no element of eventual recovery ? 

Are these statements, or is something like them, 
true? If not, then the alleged need for the inter- 
vention of Christianity did not exist, and a prelim- 
inary question in the evidences of that religion is 
disposed of against it. But if they are true, nothing 
could be imagined to constitute a more imperative 
claim upon the compassion of a Father who could 
pity the self-inflicted ruin of his children. If all 
men, from the creation till Christ’s time, were sub- 
stantially in possession of all that Christianity came 


134 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


to bring, then Christianity was ‘as old as the crea- 
tion,” in the sense of the writer who gave that title 
to his book. But the sages of antiquity did not 
think that all men, or even that any men, were so 
enlightened, when they lamented their own igno- 
rance, and faintly hoped for more light. Socrates 
did not think so, when he told Alcibiades that he 
needed the aid of some better instruction to inform 
him how to conduct himself both toward gods and 
men; and that it was necessary that some god 
should scatter the darkness that covered his soul, 
that he might become able to discern good and 
evil.* Plato did not think so, when he said how 
much more easily and safely than upon the mere 
raft, as he calls it, of the best and firmest human 
reason, one might sail through life upon some 
stronger vehicle, or divine word.t Even that 
Porphyry, whose hostility to our religion has been 
a subject of our recent notice, did not find any 
cause to boast of possessing what superseded the 
need of supernatural religious instruction, when he 
said, ‘“‘’The importance of this collection, [that is, 
a collection of aids to a better religious knowledge, ] 
those can most justly estimate, who, feeling an 
anxious desire after the truth, have wished that 
some open vision of the gods might be granted to 
them, and set them free from their doubts.” {| And 
this seems to have been even a favorite contempla- 


* Plato, Alcibiades Secundus, (ad calc.) 
t Phedo. § 78. Opp. Tom. I. p. 194. (Edit. Bipont.) 
+ As quoted by Eusebius, Prepar. Evang. Lib. iv. cap. 7. 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 135 


tion of this celebrated Platonist’s school. Says Jam- 
blichus, his most eminent disciple, in the same strain, 
“It is manifest that those things are to be done 
which are pleasing to God; but what they are, it is 
not easy to know, except a man should hear them 
from God himself, or from some person that had 
heard them from God, or obtained the knowledge 
of them by some divine means.” * 

But, in the second place, it is part of the 
theory on which we are commenting, that a special 
divine communication of religious truth to man 
could not be made. 

Lord Herbert is conducted to this conclusion 
through his peculiar metaphysical doctrine respect- 
ing the sources and grounds of knowledge and be- 
lief.‘ We arrive,” he says, ‘at the knowledge of 
all truth knowable by us, through one or the other 
of four channels; namely, natural instinct, internal 
perception, the external senses, and reason; 7” T 
and, having satisfied himself of this, he understands 
himself to have excluded revelation as a means of 
knowledge. But what is revelation? It is_testi- 
mony of a peculiar sort, being that of a person 
who professes to have received his instruction 
directly from God. And what is testimony? It 
is a kind of evidence, compounded of two of those 
kinds, which this writer expressly recognises, while 
he rejects revelation. It is compounded of the 


* Jamblich. de Vita Pythagore, cap. 28. (p. 116. Edit. Amstel.) 
t De Veritate, (p. 37.) 


136 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


evidence of the external senses, and of that of 
reason. By the external senses we know what 
it is that some person declares, and what basis he 
offers for the conclusion, to which he invites us, that 
what he is saying is the truth. Thus we are put 
by the external senses in possession of two sets of 
facts on which to reason. And then the office of 
reason begins. Here are certain phenomena; the 
question is how we shall account for them ; and, if 
they cannot be accounted for, in any other way, so 
satisfactorily as by the hypothesis of the thing 
asserted being true, —if, seen and_ heard, they 
prove to be such, as to lead in a fair process of 
ratiocination to that conclusion, —then to us the 
thing asserted is true ; and it is a perception of the 
senses, followed by an action of the reasoning 
faculty, which has brought us to that determination. 

This I take to be the philosophy of testimony ; so 
that, even on the showing of the writer whom we are 
discussing, it is not excluded as a legitimate ground 
of knowledge and belief. My neighbour tells me that 
some indifferent fact took place within his knowl- 
edge an hour ago. I believe him, and the univer- 
sal sense of mankind declares that there is nothing 
absurd in my doing so. But why do I believe him ? 
All that I know in the first instance is, that he has 
spoken certain words. The knowledge of that 
fact comes to me by means of what Lord Herbert 
calls by the common name of external sensation. All 
the rest is a subject for reasoning. I have then a 
phenomenon to account for. How came he to 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 157 


make the assertion he has made? There are only 
three possible suppositions. First, he did not mean 
to speak the truth, but to deceive; secondly, he 
meant to speak it, but was mistaken as to what the 
truth was; thirdly, he was both honest and well- 
informed, — he meant to tell the truth, and could 
not but have been acquainted with it. And, when 
the circumstances of the case are such as to forbid 
us to take up with any other supposition than this 
Jast, then we cannot escape from receiving the 
matter of the testimony as true, and it is by a pro- 
cess of reasoning that we have become satisfied 
of its truth. 

This, I say, is the rationale of testimony, in all 
cases. It is by the external senses that we per- 
ceive what testimony, in a given case, is. It is by 
an exercise of the reasoning faculty that we decide 
on its validity ; in other words, that we determine 
whether we ought to receive or to reject what it 
vouches for. It might perhaps have been thought 
sufficient for me to urge that any account of the 
sources of knowledge, which excludes testimony, 
would be but a mere contradiction to the common 
sense of men; but I trust it will not be thought super- 
fluous to have made these few observations by way 
of showing, that the author’s enumeration of the 
avenues between the human mind and _ truth, 
(whether adequate in other respects or not, it would 
be here out of place to inquire,) is, as to the 
question of the worth of testimony, not at all to 


the purpose. It leaves the whole province of 
Vor. Il. 18 


138 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


testimony uninvaded, with all the ample preroga- 
tives that a considerate mind ascribes to it. 

Now supernatural revelation, as has been said, 
is a kind of testimony. It claims to be precisely 
that, and nothing else. And the question, as far 
as concerns the laws of belief now under consider- 
ation, has just the length and breadth of this, which 
every one knows how to answer ; — whether testi- 
mony, provided it answers the proper conditions as 
to kind and degree, is a reasonable foundation of 
belief. And thus we come to that saying of the 
Master, than which nothing can more completely 
recommend itself to a sound philosophy, that, ‘if 
we receive the witness of men, the witness of God 
is greater.” Why greater? Because, as to the 
witness of men, two questions always have to be 
asked. Can they be inclined to deceive others ? 
Can they be deceived themselves? It is impossible 
that God should be either. It is certain that all to 
which God is witness is true, because, when he 
makes any communication, he certainly designs to 
declare the truth, and he certainly knows what the 
truth is. When, therefore, a testimony produced 
by man is alleged to be prompted by God, whom 
we cannot see or hear, all that we need to inquire, 
is, whether it is really God who is bearing that 
testimony. Here a different office for the reason 
occurs. The fact that it is God virtually, who is 
testifying through one entrusted with his message, is 
not to be admitted without proof. But it is a fact 
capable of proof. Our Lord, when he said, “ ‘The 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 139 


words which I speak are not mine, but the Father’s 
which sent me,”— “If ye believe not me, believe 
the works,”— “ The father that dwelleth in me, he 
doth the works,”— when he said these things, and 
at the same time exhibited his credentials, in works 
obviously within the power of the omnipotence of 
the Universal Ruler alone, then he put together a 
perfect demonstration of the fact, that the witness 
which he bore was God’s witness; and so rested 
its contents securely on that highest evidence of 
the divine veracity. 

I had already set down these views, when it 
eccurred to me to turn to Locke’s chapter “ On the 
Degrees of Assent” in the ‘Essay concerning 
Human Understanding ;” and before leaving the 
topic I cannot do better than to confirm what has 
been said by a short extract from that chapter. 
After remarking upon the grounds and conditions of 
the convincing force of common testimony, that 
admirable philosopher goes on to say, ‘There is 
one sort of propositions that challenge the highest 
degree of assent upon bare testimony, whether the 
thing proposed agree or disagree with common 
experience, and the ordinary course of things, 
or no. ‘The reason whereof is, because the testi- 
mony is of such a one as cannot deceive, nor be 
deceived, and that is of God himself. This car- 
ries with it assurances beyond doubt, evidence be- 
yond exception. This testimony is called by a 
peculiar name, revelation.” * 


* Essay, &c. Book iv, chap, 16, § 14. 


140 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


It is on a condition, then, of the alleged recipient 
of a revelation, that Lord Herbert rests his argu- 
ment of the impossibility of a revelation being 
made. Dr. ‘Tindal, on the other hand, draws his 
conclusion to the same effect from a condition of the 
alleged giver of the revelation. He deduces the 
impossibility of special revelation from considera- 
tions of the immutability of the divine nature. 
This is some of his language on the subject, and 
the like is repeated in different parts of his book. 
“From the time Christianity commenced, you must 
own God is mutable; and that such additions have 
been made to the all-perfect laws of infinite wis- 
dom, as constitute a new religion. The reason 
why the law of nature is immutable is, because it 
is founded on the unalterable reason of things. 
But, if God is an arbitrary being, and can command 
things merely from will and pleasure, —some things 
to-day, and others to-morrow, — there is nothing 
either in the nature of God, or in the things them- 
selves, to hinder him from perpetually changing his 
mind.” * | 

All who are acquainted with the history of reli- 
gious discussion have had occasion to observe, that 
there is no other topic which has been more loosely 
and feebly discoursed upon than this of the divine 
immutableness. God’s unchangeableness, under- 
stood as many seem to conceive of it, so far from 
being his great perfection, from which the most 
certain conclusions respecting his agency might be 


“ Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 6, (p. 61.) 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 14] 


deduced, would be as far as possible from being any 
perfection or excellence whatever. Is God un- 
changeable in his special relations to his creatures 
and his world? in his manifestations of himself? in 
his methods of operation, if operation could then be 
predicated of him? ‘That would be to ascribe to 
him the position of an Epicurean deity; to deny 
that he exercises a providence; to preclude him 
from the happiness of action (for what is action but 
change, change both in the agent and in the sub- 
ject?) —to strip him of that paternal character, which 
does not crush the free agency of the child, but al- 
lows it to produce its often wayward results, and then 
interposes with the additional or different protection 
or aid, which the altered circumstances have made 
requisite. God could not be unchangeable in his 
perfections,—unchangeable in the principles and 
spirit of his government,— unchangeable in his 
rectitude, wisdom and love,—unless his methods 
of dealing with his children were changed from 
time to time, so as to correspond with the altered 
circumstances, into which, from time to time, they 
were brought in the exercise of their own free will 
or by force of some foreign influence. The Judge 
of all the earth is immutable, because he will 
always do that which is right. But the right to be 
done, is itself determined by the occasion for ac- 
tion; and as long as there is endless mutability in 
human things, there will be a corresponding variety 
in the operations of God. 

Accordingly, in an endeavour to prove that the 


142 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


alleged revelation of Christianity conflicts with the 
doctrine of the divine immutableness, the only rea- 
sonable medium of proof would be to show, that all 
the existing need of that religion, and all the advan- 
tages for its favorable reception and spread,— all 
the capacity of men to adopt, value, preserve and 
use it, —all the demands for it, in short, of what- 
ever kind, — all the sad experience of sin and folly 
consequent upon the absence of such a guide, —and 
all the preparation for estimating the desolation that 
had been and the relief that had come, — which ex- 
isted at the time of its publication, had existed 
alike at some earlier period. Nay; it would be 
necessary to go further, and to show not only that 
the fulness of time had brought no additional rea- 
sons cognizable by us for its intervention, but that 
it could by possibility have brought none cognizable 
by the Divine Mind. Putting out of the question 
our being able, at the era of the Christian revelation, 
to see peculiar reasons for it, he who, from the im- 
mutableness of the divine Being, should propose to 
demonstrate the impossibility of that revelation, 
because his sagacity could not discern any peculiar 
fitness for it in point of time or occasion, would be 
well on his way towards the presumption of arguing 
that it was incredible that the sun shone yesterday, 
because the rain fell all the day before. It will be 
no superfluous modesty in us to own, that God 
knows his own occasions, and may manifest himself 
differently, — and that, without a change of his prin- 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 143 


ciples of action, — even though we should be left at 
a loss respecting the principle of the variation. 

I observed, near the beginning of this Lecture, 
that, of the four propositions into which I had re- 
solved the theory now before us, two, namely the 
first and fourth, were of that nature, that the unbe- 
lieving disputant, provided he found that certain 
facts implied in them, or bearing upon them, could 
be established, would be authorized to maintain 
them with a degree of confidence, while with re- 
spect to the second and third, this would be by no 
means equally true. 

It has, I trust, been by this time made to appear, 
that this remark holds good concerning the second, 
which is a purely speculative proposition, and, in 
all respects in which inquiry does not satisfy us of its 
incorrectness, must be owned to belong to a region 
of speculation which the modest inquirer treads with 
extreme caution. 

The third proposition is, that a special divine 
communication of religious truth to men ought not 
to be made. When I apply to this the same obser- 
vation of the difficulty which a right mind, in any 
state of its knowledge, will find in advancing it, the 
justness of the remark will little require any sup- 
port of argument. Undoubtedly we may state 
strong cases, as to which we should feel entitled 
to, say with confidence, that such or such a thing 
ought not to be done by a divine agency ;—in 
other words, that the doing of it would be inconsis- 
tent with the attribute of rectitude in the divine 


144 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


agent. But clearly, to justify such a confidence, 
the cases must be strong; and this for the obvious 
reasons, that the rightfulness of a course or an action 
depends upon the relations of the things designed 
to be affected by it; and that relations of a thing, 
known to God, but not known to us, may be fit to 
determine a course or action affecting it to be emi- 
nently right, which to us, purely through our igno- 
rance, appears to bear the opposite character. 
But as to any appearance of truth in the asser- 
tion now before us, how does the matter stand? 
“God ought not to make to his children any spe- 
cial revelation of religious truth.” Why not? Be- 
cause it would be calling on them to renounce the 
guidance of their reason, which it would be wrong 
for him to do. This is the substance of remarks 
often urged in the work of Dr. Tindal. For in- 
stance ; ‘¢ Must not that rule, which can annul any 
other, be not only the supreme, but the sole rule? 
For, as far as men take any other rule, so far they 
lose of their perfection, by ceasing to be governed 
by this rule, in conformity to the nature, and in 
imitation of the perfect will, of God.” * And else- 
where; “ The holy ghost can’t deal with men as ra- 
tional creatures, but by proposing arguments to con- 
vince their understandings, and influence their wills, 
in the same manner as if proposed by other agents; 
for to go beyond this, would be making impressions 
on man, as a seal does on wax, to the confounding of 
their reason, and their liberty in choosing ; and the 


" Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 14, (p. 367.) 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 145 


man would then be merely passive, and the action 
would be the action of another being, acting upon 
him, for which he could be no way accountable.” * 

Merely calling attention briefly to the fact, that 
this argument implies an absolute contradiction of a 
suggestion, thrown out in other parts of the book, 
and awaiting our consideration under the next 
head, —namely, that the evidence produced for 
revelation falls short of being strictly undeniable 
and compulsory, —I ask if it does not betray a 
mere confusion of ideas. ‘To bring men new in- 
formation, the evidence of which, (that is, the 
credibility of the testimony which declares it,) 
their reason is to weigh, the import of which their 
reason is to apprehend, the applications of which 
their reason is to make, what is that, I ask, but 
to deal with them as rational creatures? How is 
that, in the nature of a command to them to re- 
nounce their reason? ‘To go,” it is said, ‘“ be- 
yond the method of proposing arguments to con- 
vince men’s understandings and influence their 
wills, would be making impressions on men, as a 
seal does on wax, to the confounding of their rea- 
son, and their liberty in choosing.” If this be true, 
in any sense requisite to give it pertinency to the 
argument in which it occurs, then it follows that 
the witness on the stand, who acquaints those 
whom it may concern with something known to 
hin,—something which they must know from 


" Christianity, &c. chap. 12. (p. 199.) 
Vot. II. 19 


146 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


him, or else not at all,—something which they 
could never perceive by any intuition, external or 
internal, nor seize upon by any instinct, nor work 
out by any demonstration, — that witness is making 
impressions on others, as a seal does on wax, to 
the confounding of their reason, and their liberty in 
choosing. ‘The doctrine lies within the most man- 
ageable compass, and refuses to be obscured by any 
verbiage. A man who knows more than another, 
may convey his better information to that other, 
and give satisfaction, through an exercise of the re- 
cipient’s reason, that he is speaking the truth ;— 
in other words, that it is the truth that is spoken. 
God knows more than all men. Something which 
he knows, relating to their duty and prospects, it 
exceedingly imports them to know too. He in- 
forms them of it, giving them, at the same time, 
the proper proof that it is by him that the informa- 
tion is conveyed. But, while he addresses their 
reason with that evidence, and enlarges its range 
of action with new facts, with what suitableness 
can it be said that he is commanding that their rea- 
son be renounced ? 

Again; a special divine communication of reli- 
gious truth to men ought not to be made, because 
to impose upon men any obligations, additional to 
those under which they had always lain, would be 
a course inconsistent with the divine rectitude. 
The language of Tindal to this point is of extraor- 
dinary strength. “I think,” he says, “I have fully 
proved from the nature of God and man, and the 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 147 


relations we stand in to him and one another, that 
the divine precepts can’t vary; and that these re- 
lations, which are the permanent voice of God, by 
which he speaks to all mankind, do at all times 
infallibly point out to us our duty in all the various 
circumstances of life. Should revelation require 
less than these relations require, [the expression here 
is equivocal, but the strain of the argument deter- 
mines how the author meant the word require to be 
understood, that is, in the sense of making known 
the requisition, ] would it not be an imperfect rule ° 
And if it enjoins more, would it not argue the 
author of it to be of a tyrannical nature, imposing 
on his subjects, and under most severe penalties, 
unnecessary things; and likewise show a design, 
not of being beloved, but of being hated and 
dreaded?” * And again; “If any instituted reli- 
gion varies from the religion of nature and reason 
in any one particular, nay, in the minutest circum- 
stance, [and the context shows what is meant here 
by variation, — that is, not contradiction only, but 
also a mere difference of less or more, ] that alone is 
an argument, which makes all things else that can 
be said for its support totally ineffectual.” + And 
in yet another place ; ‘Can there be a greater proof 
of its truth, [that is, of the truth of the system of 
natural religion recommended, | than that it is, in all 
its parts, so exactly calculated for the good of man- 
kind, that either to add to, or take from it, will be to 
their manifest prejudice ? ” t 


* Christianity, &c. chap. 3, (p. 31.) t Ibid. chap. 6, (p. 60 ) 
t Ibid. chap. 14, (p. 422.) 


148 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


I conceive it to be always due to the dignity, as 
well as fairness, of discussion, in an important ques- 
tion, especially in one belonging to the venerable 
subject of religion, to avoid all appearance of treat- 
ing with slight any thing which in good faith is set 
forth as argument; but I own I find a difficulty in 
dealing with this, in a manner to give it the con- 
sideration due to a sincerely intended objection 
from an eminent source. ‘There are two sorts of 
argument, which perplex a controvertist ; one, the 
very strong; the other, the very feeble; the latter, 
both because of their not offering something sub- 
stantial and definite to assail, and because the little 
force which can be allowed to them, and the poor 
figure which they make in a reply, create the sus- 
picion that the statement does not do them perfect 
justice, and that the writer meant something more by 
them, which is slurred over and evaded by his op- 
ponent. Nothing more can be done to meet this em- 
barrassment than to quote the writer’s own words, 
which I have done in the present instance; and 
they are words from which, and from the connexion 
of which, no other meaning can be extracted, than 
that it would be tyranny in God to lay on men, 
at any time, any commands additional to com- 
mands previously received by them. 

Certainly, this is a principle of a character quite 
at war with those commonly recognised in the like 
premises ;—-so much so as to make it difficult to 
account for its being so confidently advanced, 
except by understanding that it was caught up 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 149 


as a mere appendage to a theory, without due at- 
tention either to its abstract reasonableness or to 
its practical bearings. Certainly it is no hardship 
for a parent, with reference to the altered circum- 
stances, capacities, dispositions, temptations of his 
child, to address to him new directions, or (for the 
case will bear a stronger statement) to lay him 
absolutely under new obligations by means of 
giving him further instruction concerning his duty. 
It is not a hardship in governments to make new laws 
for the benefit of their subjects. They will do it 
most reasonably and equitably ; and that, not mere- 
ly because they have themselves become enlight- 
ened by experience, and know better what laws 
are needed, (which, of course, is a condition of 
change not applicable to the divine lawgiver,) but 
because the subjects have come into a condition, 
which calls for the new legislation in a way that it 
had not been called for before. And how is it to 
be maintained, that a course, which, in its princi- 
ples, is avowedly right and provident, when adopted 
by a parent in educating his children, or by rulers 
in profiting their subjects, should be otherwise than 
right and provident in the Universal Parent and 
Ruler in educating and profiting his world F 

Even in the strongest producible case, and that 
which the argument we are considering most 
frequently and confidently puts forward as its main 
point, — that of positive institutions of external 
service, or worship, —nothing, I submit, can be 
more undeniable than the equity of the principles 


150 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


involved. ‘That may be made our duty, through 
the command of a superior, which, independently 
of his command, would be no duty whatever. And 
it may be made not only our duty, but our profita- 
ble duty; profitable not only through the reward 
which its observance will bring, according to the 
superior’s good pleasure, but by means of its being 
an expression, and so a confirmation, of our spirit 
of obedience ; and, it being thus profitable to us, the 
injunction of it will be seen to be by no means an 
oppression on the superior’s part, but, on the con- 
trary, a bounty. A parent may prescribe some- 
thing to his child, to be done simply as an expres- 
sion of the child’s respect and love, without its 
pretending to any other merit; and, merely by 
force of its being thus prescribed, it becomes an 
act of filial duty, acceptable on the one side, and 
attractive and full of pleasure on the other. Should 
God prescribe any thing to us, of the nature of 
mere external or ritual service, and we be unable 
to see that it had any inherent worth or fitness, that 
alone would not prove it to be merely indifferent ; — 
it might be only our ignorance that was in fault. 
But suppose it was indifferent in itself, and known 
to be so, still, from the moment that it was com- 
manded, it would be not wrongfully, but kindly, 
made our duty, being converted into an expression, 
and consequently a confirmation, of those devout 
sentiments and affections, which it is abstractly and 
independently right for us in all ways to express 
and cherish. 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 151 


The remaining doctrine of the system under 
consideration is, that if, after all, a special divine 
communication of religious truth was to be made, 
at would not have been such as is actually offered 
mm Christiamty. It would have been different, not 
in respect to its contents ; — objections have indeed 
been also made to them, but such objections belong 
not so much to the & priort argument, as to a later 
part of the discussion ;— but it would have been 
different in respect to the general conditions of 
its communication and action. Proceeding from a 
perfect Being, it is said, it would have partaken of 
his perfection. It would have had absolute univer- 
sality and completeness, in particulars in which it 
is allowed on all hands that Christianity has neither. 
It would have been universal in its original publica- 
tion, and not been made known, in the first instance, 
to one people. It would have been perfect in its 
evidence, forcing conviction, admitting no possi- 
bility of unbelief or doubt. It would have been 
perfect in the execution of its office, working a 
complete renovation and elevation of the human 
character, and not allowing men to remain par- 
tially enlightened and reformed as they are. 
Wanting these characteristics, it cannot be received 
as having proceeded from the divine Author to whom 
it is ascribed. Because God is perfect, therefore 
his work must be so too. Wanting perfection, it 
does not bear his mark. It is not worthy of him. 
“Can laws be imperfect, where a legislator is 
absolutely perfect?” Such is the question asked 


152 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


by ‘Tindal,* as if there were demonstration in its 
terms, and also with a singular oversight of its 
bearing on his own doctrine ; for certainly the laws 
of natural religion, whatever else they were, were 
not perfectly operative. And again; ‘“ No religion 
can come from a being of infinite wisdom and per- 
fection, but what is absolutely perfect.” T 

This doctrine requires to be considered, with a 
view to show in what sense it is in its general 
statement true, and in what false; and especially 
in regard to its application to the three principal | 
particulars which have been specified, namely, those 
of the original limited revelation of Christianity ; 
its evidence, falling short of a coercion of the 
mind ; and its hitherto partial reforming effect ; — 
the first of which, as we have had repeated occa- 
sion to observe, attracted the attention of the an- 
cient unbelieving writers. | Some observations upon 
this topic in these relations, together with some re- 
marks upon the works of three authors, one of whom 
in one way, and the two others in another, have ex- 
erted an important influence on the spirit and tone 
in which revealed religion has been treated in more 
recent times, will occupy my next Lecture, and 
terminate the present Course. 


“ Christianity, &c. chap. 6. (p. 69.) t Ibid. chap. 1. (p, 3.) 
{ See above, pp. 20, 54, 63, 94. 


LECTURE XVI. 


DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, FURTHER CONSIDERED, — 
SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF CERTAIN PHILOSOPH- 
ICAL WRITINGS. — CONCLUSION. | 


My last Lecture was occupied with a considera- 
tion of what I had denominated the Devstical 
a Priort Argument, that is, the argument against 
Christianity, not drawn from a consideration of its 
alleged proofs, in order to show that, in point of 
fact, such a supernatural revelation of religious truth 
has not been made, but drawn from antecedent 
considerations of the perfections of God and the 
circumstances of his world, with a view to show 
an unreasonableness in the supposition that it would 
be made. The heads of the argument bearing 
upon this result, as urged in different parts of the 
works of Lord Herbert and Matthew Tindal, I 
said might be concisely stated in these four pro- 
positions ; 

Vou. II. 20 


154, DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


I. A supernatural revelation to men of religious 
truth did not need to be made ; 

2. It could not be made ; 

3. It ought not to be made; 

4, If made, it would not have been such, as to 
its general conditions, as that which we have in 
Christianity. 

The first three of these propositions have already 
been treated, with considerations designed to refute 
them. ‘The sense of the fourth, when drawn out 
into particulars, is, that, if God had designed to 
make a revelation of himself, it would have had 
a completeness of three sorts, different from what, 
on all hands, Christianity is allowed to have had. 
1. It would not have been given, in the first 
instance, to a single people, but to all mankind 
alike; 2. It would have been accompanied with a 
perfect controlling evidence, so as to compel the 

conviction of every mind; 3. It would have been 
such as to produce perfectly its designed effect, and 
make its disciples vastly better men than it has 
made them. 

The general ground for such propositions will be 
seen, as soon as I state it, to be absolutely indefen- 
sible. “A religion,” says Tindal, “coming from 
the author of all perfection, must, as worthy of its 
divine original, be wholly perfect.” * Nothing can 
be less true than this assertion, which, with little 
variety of expression, is repeated in different parts 


* Christianity as Old as the Creation, &c. chap. 13, (p, 283.) 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 155 


of the treatise. ‘Though it strikes the ear as having 
the authority of a maxim, and must in that way have 
deceived its author as to its force, it owes the ap- 
_ pearance to nothing but its being a play upon 
words. Who can pretend to say, that every thing 
which God has made must be perfect? Where 
can we get that characteristic of perfect power, that 
it shall make none but perfect things ; — a character- 
istic, indeed, which would obviously be a limitation 
of it, and cause it not to be perfect? ‘The only 
sense, in which the proposition has any appearance of 
truth, is this; that whatever God does must be 
perfect as to its end. But many results, perfect in 
themselves, may be produced by a combination of 
imperfect means, and may even require an applica- 
tion of means, singly considered, imperfect, in 
order to produce them; and if that were the 
meaning, — if, in alleging imperfection in Chris- 
tianity, all that was intended was to impute imper- 
fection of that kind, — the charge would not be of a 
nature to create the slightest presumption against 
its divine origin. . 

But, not further to theorize, the hasty assertion 
that whatever is created by a perfect God must be 
perfect in itself, is refuted by obvious fact. It has 
its downright contradictions in great part of the 
manifold appearances of nature. Without imper- 
fection, indeed, in the parts, it would be impossible 
that there should be variety, and mutual depend- 
ence and connexion, in the whole; and variety and 
mutual dependence are themselves traits of per- 


156 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


fection, which God’s universe could not spare with- 
out ceasing to be as excellent as it is. 

So much for the general doctrine, which will not 
bear a moment’s looking at. As to particulars, the 
first alleged presumption against Christianity, as be- 
ing what it claims to be, a message from God to 
men, is found in its having been revealed not to 
all men, but toa portion of them. “Is it not incum- 
bent on those,” it is asked by Dr. Tindal, “ who 
make any external revelation so necessary to the 
happiness of all mankind, to show how it is consist- 
ent with the notion of God’s being universally be- 
nevolent, not to have revealed it to all his children, 
when all had equal need of it? Was it not as easy 
for him to have communicated it to all nations as to 
any one nation, or person? or in all languages, as 
in any one?”* Again; “If a revelation was ex- 
tremely desirable, and highly useful to a world over- 
run with ignorance and superstition, the same rea- 
son, which obliged God to grant it to some, would 
have obliged him to grant it to all to whom it was 
equally useful, and who equally deserved it as well 
as equally wanted it.” + 

I remark, first, that this argument imports, that, 
when God bestows any blessing, greater or less, in 


* Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 12. (p. 196.) 

t Introduction to the Second Part of Christianity as Old as the Cre- 
ation, p. xiv. This Second Part was never printed. Of the extremely 
rare Introduction to it, to which I have referred before, there is an imper- 
fect copy, extending to thirty-two pages (perhaps all that ever passed 
through the press) among the books of Harvard College, presented by 
Thomas Hollis. 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 157 


any quarter, he is bound to bestow it universally, 
and that too at the same time ; —a principle which, 
if good for any thing, would go very much further 
than even the very broad terms of its statement. 
Certainly, one man, who has not a thing, is injured, 
if at all, by that want of his own, and not by an- 
other’s having it; so that the principle would go to 
the full extent of showing, that, if God had any 
blessing capable of being conferred, and not yet 
conferred in any quarter, he would be bound in 
justice to bestow it;—in other words, that, at 
least to all his intelligent creatures (for at present 
we will not carry the argument to the still more ex- 
travagant consequences to which it would admit of 
being pushed), he would be obliged to give every 
thing that they were individually capable of receiv- 
ing, and so to abolish all the variety which at pres- 
ent exists in the endowments and advantages of 
men, and with it, the occasion for all that large 
class of virtues, which grow out of their need of, 
and dependence upon, each other. 

But whoever else might hold that argument, cer- 
tainly it would not be the Deist, with whom we 
now are reasoning; the Deist, who owns that the 
world has an intelligent Creator and Governor, and 
who must own it to be on no such principles, that, 
in point of fact, that intelligent Governor manages 
his world. If there were that presumption against 
Christianity, which the Deist alleges, arising from 
the want of universality in its communication, it 
would exist also against the same want of universal- 


158 DEISTICAL A FRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


ity in the communication of other blessings, which 
however, in point of fact, are certainly not communi- 
cated universally. If the principle of divine opera- 
tion, which the Deist affirms to be essential and uni- 
form, (and so finds a presumption against revealed 
religion, which does not exhibit it,) were what he 
pretends, it would appear equally in other divine 
operations, which we perfectly well know do not 
develope it, but the contrary. The doctrine cannot 
be good in this case, because, if good in this, it 
would equally hold in others, where nothing can be 
more certain, than that it does not hold. 

This argument is treated in his usual masterly 
manner by Bishop Butler, in his “ Analogy of Reli- 
gion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and 
Course of Nature.” To use his language, which, 
in treating this class of topics, we must often be 
content to quote, or else to speak much less to the 
purpose, the objection is founded on a supposition 
“that God would not bestow any favor upon any 
man unless he bestowed the same on all; a suppo- 
sition which we find contradicted not by a few in- 
stances in God’s natural government of the world, 
but by the general analogy of nature together.” * 
‘A system, or constitution,” he Says again, ‘in 
its notion, implies variety, and so complicated a 
one as this world, very great variety. So that, were 
revelation universal, yet from men’s different ca- 
pacities of understanding, from the different lengths 
of their lives, their different educations and other 


* Analogy, &c. Part I. chap. 6. (p. 288. Edit. Bost.) 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 159 


external circumstances, and from their difference of 
temper and bodily constitution, their religious situa- 
tions would be widely different, and the disadvan- 
tages of some in comparison with others, perhaps 
altogether as much as at present. And the true 
account, whatever it be, why mankind, or such a 
part of mankind, are placed in this condition of ig- 
norance, must be supposed also the true account of 
our further ignorance, in not knowing the reasons 
why or whence it is that they are placed in that 
condition. ” * 

He goes on to present some thoughts which, he 
says, ‘“‘may deserve the serious consideration of 
those persons who think the circumstances of man- 
kind, or their own, in this respect, a ground of com- 
plaint.” I will not repeat views which may be 
found in a work so accessible and well known, and 
which, from the nervous conciseness of the style, 
do not admit of being abridged, but rather pre- 
sent another, which has always struck my mind 
with great force. It is, I conceive, a pervading 
principle of the divine economy, as experience 
makes it known to us, to confer additional value 
upon the blessings it bestows, by bestowing them 
not immediately, but through the agency of human 
benefactors ; thus laying on men a new obligation 
in respect to the benefit which God means to con- 
fer on their brethren through their means, and ex- 
citing in these latter a sentiment of gratitude to the 
human instrument, as well as to the divine source ; 


* Analogy, &c. Part II. chap. 6. (p. 294.) 


160 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. 


and so carrying out the great system of multiplying 
the ties which bind God’s children to one another. 

God might feed and clothe us, he might instruct 
and govern us, by his own immediate agency. 
There is something which we want, and which 
others have. He does not mean that we shall be 
without it, while they have it; and he might him- 
self bestow it on us without any help of theirs. 
But this is not the method he commonly adopts. 
He means rather, that, when we have it, we shall 
receive it through them; and this, in order that, in 
addition to the benefit of the mere possession to be 
enjoyed by both, they may feel an impulse to profit- 
able action, and we a sense of dependence on, and 
obligation for, their action; that they may have 
the satisfaction of giving, which will not only be a 
present pleasure, but exercise and educate them in 
one kind of virtue, and that we, who receive at 
their hands, may have sentiments called forth, 
which equally, in another way, belong to moral 
enjoyment and progress. 

For such ends, it would seem, God, designing 
for us the boons of support, instruction, protection, 
places us in the way of instruments of his, for these 
blessmes. He feeds and clothes us, not with his own 
hand and care, but by those of our parents. He 
instructs us through our teachers; he protects us by 
human governments. His benefactions are always 
pouring upon us; but they are poured through hu- 
man channels. And if so in other particulars, then 
why not, unless the universal analogy of his opera- 


HERBERT AND ‘'TINDAL. 161 


tions is to be broken, in that of revealed religion ? 
And, if so it is to be in respect to revealed religion, 
what is this but to declare, in other words, that the 
very state of things is to be, which is tortured into 
the objection we are now considering ; — that is to 
say, that God, designing eventually to enlighten 
and convert all men, puts a portion of men in pos- 
session of the instrument for accomplishing that 
design ; that he will Christianize the world by 
Christianizing first a part of it, and bidding them 
labor to bring about the further result. The ulti- 
mate object, for which they were. privileged above 
others in the first instance, may, it is true, be de- 
layed by their want of proper faithfulness to their 
trust. But this is but an unavoidable consequence 
of that moral system, which, proposing to train the 
human will, refuses in any instance to do it violence. 
It equally occurs in respect to other benefits, de- 
signed by God to be conferred by man on man. And, 
at all events, no presumption against the theory of 
God’s intervention in a given instance can be fur- 
nished by its involving an accompaniment, which 
has equally attended his agency in cases where 
we know that he has acted. 

But, to proceed to the second particular of alleged 
unworthy imperfection im the Christian revelation. 
‘¢T can’t help thinking,” says Dr. Tindal, “ that an 
infmitely wise and good God has adapted the rules 
and evidences of what he really requires from 
mankind to their general capacity, and that the 


certainty of every command must be equal to the 
Vor. II. 21 


162 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


importance of the duty.”* And the argument, that 
religious instruction from God, in order to be ac- 
credited as such, ought to carry with it conclusive 
evidence, so as to leave no room for doubt in any 
mind upon questions relating to its origin, its trans- 
mission, or its interpretation, is urged with frequent 
repetitions, and in a variety of particulars. 

Certainly, if this were so, that very religion of 
nature, from which the writers now under consider- 
ation derive their arguments against revealed reli- 
gion, could not maintain the pretension of having 
proceeded from God. Certainly, whatever these 
writers, in devotion to their theory, may have per- 
suaded themselves to account true, very few others 
will be prepared to admit, that the truths of natu- 
ral religion had this absolutely clear and unques- 
tionable evidence, which they affirm to be an essen- 
tial attribute of a religion from God. If it had 
such evidence, how by possibility came it, that 
there ever was such a thing as an idolater or an 
atheist ? , 

But why should evidence of such absolutely 
unavoidable and compulsory force be expected ? 
Because God would not suffer himself to be de- 
feated in what he undertook. To be sure, he 
would not. But what did he undertake? To 
produce infallible conviction on every mind? This 
is the very question at issue. How can you prove, 
that this is what he undertook? Will you say, that 


* Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 13. (p. 292.) 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 163 


nothing short of this was worthy of him? How 
can that be made to appear? How is it to be 
shown, that it was unworthy of him to present 
reasonable grounds of conviction, unless they were 
also made overpowering? That it would not be 
unworthy of him, might be asserted from the fact, 
that, in respect to not a few other parts of knowl- 
edge, — and knowledge, too, not unimportant, — 
he does, in the common course of his providence, 
exhibit to us proof persuasive, and to most minds 
sufficient, but still not overpowering. And upon 
what kind of evidence is it, that, day by day, in 
the common course of life, we decide questions 
that excite us in the highest degree ? Is it always, 
generally, frequently, evidence which leaves no room 
whatever for doubt, in a mind biassed by some 
cause to a wrong conclusion ? 

But not to stop in this, are we not able to see, 
(though, if we could not, it would be nothing which 
a satisfactory treatment of the argument would 
demand,) that the true idea of a religion designed 
for men’s religious culture, would be in some re- 
spects inconsistent with that of its being accom- 
panied by a weight of evidence, which should 
preclude the possibility of hesitation on the part of 
any mind? Does it not seem abstractly fit, that, 
in the process of obtaining our conviction of the di- 
vine origin of a certain offered means of religious 
improvement, as well as in our use of it when the 
conviction has been attained, there should be an 
exercise of our moral powers; which will be, 


164 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


provided the evidence presented is such, and will 
not be, if it is not such, as to do its work upon 
us more or less effectually, according as we ap- 
proach it in a spirit of seriousness and candor, 
with an aptitude for the perception of religious 
truth, with that desire for religious improvement 
which welcomes, or, at least, without that dis- 
taste for it which rejects, its means? And may 
not the difficulties, which to one man may appear 
to stand in the way of a religious belief, be re- 
garded as bearing some analogy to the temptations, 
which, with another, stand in the way of a reli- 
gious practice, — both of them making part of his 
probation, and liable to be disposed of in one way 
or another, according to his better or worse state of 
mind. May not thisbe? I ask. And there may 
be thought to be the more force in the question, 
when one considers the unquestionable effect exerted 
by the state of mind, in which we approach evi- 
dence, on the judgment which we pass upon it; 
an effect so well known, that in common prudence 
we avoid entertaining a question of interest, in our 
common affairs, in a moment of passion, for instance, 
or under the bias of any prejudice we can escape. 

I submit these questions; but, if any one does 
not see cause to give them the answer which they 
seem to me to deserve, he is to be reminded that 
the great consideration of the resemblance between 
the evidence for Christianity and the evidence for 
most other important truth, in not being such as 
strictly to coerce the mind, still stands in undimin- 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 165 


ished force. If the application of the principle in 
the one case is known to us by experience to be a 
character of the divine agency, shall we say that 
there has not been divine agency in another case, 
because there too that character appears ? 

Once more ; the question is asked in the work now 
under consideration, ‘“‘ Must not revelation have had 
its intended effect, and especially where its instru- 
ments of conveying extraordinary assistances are in 
great numbers and in great authority [it is the min- 
istry, that here is meant]; must it not have made 
Christians much more perfect, and excellent, than 
men could possibly be, when under times of una- 
voidable corruption ? ” * 

It would be quite safe, I conceive, to reply that 
it has made them so;—to meet the question on 
the ground of fact, and say, that, in the instances 
which have best illustrated its force, Christianity 
has actually produced a higher type of the human 
character than was ever the product of any other 
influence ; and that, on the whole, it has given a 
superior elevation to society, and actually intro- 
duced into it new elements of manifest and impor- 
tant good, which meet all the fair demands of the 
question thus presented. If it must needs be pro- 
nounced to be not from God, because it has not 
made men perfect, that sentence must pass equally 
on those who bring the charge against it; for what 
perfect society, or what perfect man, did Natural 


* Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 14. (p. 402.) 


166 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


Religion ever yet form? ‘That it has not made men 
perfect, is too true; but what ground is there for 
the pretence, that it should have done so under 
peril of being set aside as an imposture? ‘To 
suppose an operative means, of any other kind than 
that of influence, is to put virtue, as a result, out of 
the question ; for virtue is, of its nature, something 
voluntary. And how was any thing of the nature 
of mere influence to perfect men, or even to im- 
prove them in any degree, except by an action of 
their own wills; and in whatsoever degree their 
wills, under the operation of a beneficial influ- 
ence, are reluctant or averse, what does that con- 
demn but their wills, instead of the influence acting 
upon them? 

The truth is, there is a double error on this 
subject; one, in expecting too much from an in- 
fluence, — which Christianity is, else it would not 
respect men’s wills, and accordingly could do noth- 
ing of its proper office, — one, I say, in looking to 
an influence for what an influence cannot do, since 
one element of its action lies out of itself, depend- 
ing on the dispositions of the subject; the other, 
in seeking for what Christianity has effected in the 
wrong place. If we mean to learn what this 
influence has wrought, we must look to those on 
whom it has wrought; not to those, with whom it 
has perhaps come as little in contact as if they had 
lived in Pagan times. When the question is asked, 
what Christianity has done, presently we have 
recourse to history for a reply. But history will 


HERBERT AND TINDAL. 167 


not serve us well in the premises. History is in 
great part the record of the actions of men, whom 
Christianity has in no degree, or in a very partial 
degree, affected ; whose intelligent assent it has 
not won; whose minds it has not occupied ; 
whose sentiments it has not trained ; whose atten- 
tion it may have scarcely ‘attracted. There are 
not wanting indeed monuments of its action, that 
stand out in history; as the amelioration of the 
practices of war, the achievements of philanthropic 
enterprise called forth by various miseries of man, 
the elevation of the female sex. But the true 
places to which to look for the triumphs of Chris- 
tianity are the homes and the hearts of the millions, 
whom, in successive ages, it has made good and 
happy, whom it has cheered in life, and sustained 
and tranquillized in death. If it has done little of 
this, it must be owned to have fallen short of the 
services, which were reasonably to be expected of 
what was sent into the world with such solemn 
preparation. But that will scarcely be maintained. 
If it has done much of this, — and further, if it has 
given intelligible pledges of being destined to do 
more and more, till the past time of its weakness 
shall perhaps bear but a small proportion to the du- 
ration and achievements of its exceeding power, — 
then it is unsafe to condemn it, as not potent enough 
to justify its pretension of having come from God. 

With these remarks, I dismiss the considera- 
tion of this branch of the argument. If they have 
detained us long, it was because I knew not how 


168 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE 


to make them more concise ; and, if the discussion 
cannot be called an attractive one, it however em- 
braces topics, on which many minds feel a need 
of obtaining satisfaction. 


It might be made a question whether the name 
of the famous Thomas Hobbes is to be properly 
placed, as it has commonly been, in the ranks of 
unbelief; and the question is one not admitting of 
being disposed of by a simple affirmation or denial, 
but calling for one answer or the other according to 
the terms of some circumstantial statement of it. 
Hobbes lived at the time of the Commonwealth, 
and his high notions of royal prerogative are the 
key to his opinions upon most of the subjects he 
has treated. After publishing his religious views 
the most obnoxious to censure, he continued to 
attend the worship and receive the sacraments of 
the Church of England, and in all appropriate ways 
to manifest his attachment to that communion ; and, 
if he professed and defended sentiments which other 
minds would find irreconcileable for themselves with 
religious faith, this alone would prove no more than 
that he was an inconsistent believer, which certainly 
many men are whose belief is sincere. His great 
work entitled the ‘ Leviathan, or the Matter, 
Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesias- 
tical and Civile,” is perhaps, after the writings of 
Machiavelli, the greatest riddle in all literature. 
The notions of prerogative which are there asserted 
with unquestionable seriousness, and with extraor- 


WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 169 


dinary resources of ability and learning, and force of 
style, are such that, simply announced, they would 
appear as mere absurdities, and be taken as only ad- 
vanced inirony. Says Sir James Mackintosh, (who 
names him with Bacon, Descartes, and Grotius, as 
one of the four “‘ eminent persons, born in the lat- 
ter half of the sixteenth century, that gave a new 
character to European philosophy in the succeeding 
age,”) ‘“* Hobbes, rejecting the simple truth incul- 
cated by Hooker, that ‘to live by one man’s will is 
the cause of many men’s misery,’ embraced instead 
the daring paradox, that to live by one man’s will 
is the only means of all men’s happiness. Having 
thus rendered religion the slave of every human 
tyrant, it was an unavoidable consequence that he 
should be disposed to lower her character, and lessen 
her power over men; that he should regard atheism 
as the most effectual instrument of preventing 
rebellion, at least that species of rebellion which 
prevailed in his time, and excited his alarms. The 
formidable alliance of religion with lberty haunted 
his mind, and urged him to the bold attempt of 
rooting out both these mighty principles.” * 

But the charge of atheism, or of any kind of 
infidelity, against Hobbes, cannot, as has been said, 
be made out by reference to any express avowal 
of his own to that effect. On the contrary, when, 
in treating of the sources of religion, and finding 


* General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, &c. p. 319. 
(Edit. Edin.) 


Vor. if, ey 


170 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE 


them to be three, namely the desire of men to search 
for causes, the reference of every thing that has a 
beginning to some creative cause, and the observa- 
tion of the order and consequence of things, he 
goes on to say, that the ignorance of causes makes 
men fear some invisible agent, like the gods of the 
Gentiles, but the investigation of them leads us to a 
God eternal, infinite and omnipotent,* the manner 
in which investigation is opposed by him to igno- 
rance may seem, in a fair interpretation of his 
words, to denote that what the writer mentions as 
the fruit of investigation was also the persuasion of 
his own mind. ‘This however would bring us to 
nothing further than his assertion of belief in the 
fundamental truth of natural religion ; and, when he 
proceeds to speak of different forms of religion, he 
says, that “in these four things, opinion of ghosts, | 
ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what 
men fear, and taking of things casual for prognos- 
tics, consisteth the natural seed of religion, which, 
by reason of the different fancies, judgments, and 
passions of several men, have grown up into 
different ceremonies.” T 

But not to pursue the inquiry into this writer’s 
own religious or anti-religious creed, which, be- 
ing a subject for inquiry, cannot of course be a 
prominent subject for contradiction and argument, 
I proceed to state, which will be best done in his 
own words, the peculiar doctrine, with a view to 
which I have referred to him; namely, that of the 


* Leviathan, Part I. chap. 12. (pp. 52, 53.) t Ibid. (p. 54.) 


WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 17] 


religious profession and practice of every individual 
being a thing absolutely determinable by the su- 
preme human authority. 

‘The question,” says he, ‘is not what any Chris- 
tian has made a law, or canon, to himself (which he 
might again reject, by the same right he received 
it); but what was so made a canon to them, as 
without injustice they could not do any thing con- 
trary thereunto. That the New ‘Testament should 
in this sense be canonical, that is to say, a law, in 
any place where the law of the Commonwealth had 
not made it so, is contrary to the nature of a law. 
For a law (as hath been already shown) is the 
commandment of that man, or assembly, to whom 
we have given sovereign authority, to make such 
rules for the direction of our actions, as he shall 
think fit; and to punish us, when we do any thing 
contrary to the same. When therefore any other 
man shall offer unto us any other rules, which the 
sovereign ruler hath not prescribed, they are but 
counsel and advice; which, whether good or bad, 
he that is counselled may without injustice refuse 
to observe ; and, when contrary to the laws already 
established, without injustice cannot observe, how 
good soever he conceiveth it to be, — I say he cannot 
in this case observe the same in his actions, nor in 
his discourse with other men; though he may with- 
out blame believe his private teachers, and wish he 
had the liberty to practise their advice, and that it 
were publicly received for law. For internal faith 
is In its own nature invisible, and consequently ex- 


172 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE 


empted from all human jurisdiction; whereas the 
words and actions, that proceed from it, as breaches 
of our civil obedience, are injustice both before God 
and man. Seeing then our Saviour hath denied 
his kingdom to be in this world, seeing he had said, 
he came not to judge, but.to save, the world, he 
hath not subjected us to other laws than those of 
the Commonwealth; that is, the Jews to the law 
of Moses, which he saith he came not to de- 
stroy, but to fulfil, and other nations to the laws 
of their several sovereigns, and all men to the laws 
of nature; the observing whereof both he himself 
and his apostles have in their teaching recommend- 
ed to us, as a necessary condition of being admitted 
by him in the last day into his eternal kingdom, 
wherein shall be protection, and life everlasting. 
Seeing then our Saviour and his apostles left not 
new laws to oblige us in this world, but new doc- 
trine to prepare us for the next; the books of the 
New Testament, which contain that doctrine, until 
obedience to them was commanded by them that 
God had given power to on earth to be legislators, 
were not obligatory canons, that is, laws, but only 
good and safe advice, for the direction of sinners in 
the way to salvation, which every man might take 
and refuse at his own peril, without injustice. 
«Again; our Saviour Christ’s commission to his 
apostles and disciples was to proclaim his king- 
dom (not present, but) to come; and to teach all 
nations ; and to baptize them that should believe ; 
and to enter into the houses of them that should re- 


WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 173 


ceive them; and, where they were not received, to 
shake off the dust of their feet against them; but 
not to call for fire from heaven to destroy them, nor 
to compel them to obedience by the sword. In all 
which there is nothing of power, but of persuasion. 
He sent them out as sheep unto wolves, not as 
kings to their subjects. They had not in commis- 
sion to make laws; but to obey, and teach obedi- 
ence to, laws made; and consequently they could 
not make their writings obligatory canons, without 
the help of the sovereign civil power. And there- 
fore the Scripture of the New Testament is there 
only law, where the lawful civil power hath made 
itso, At 

I do not undertake a refutation of this theory, 
which to any of my hearers, or to any one but a friend 
to the most arbitrary principles of government, would 
be wholly a work of supererogation. But I refer to it 
as having, in my opinion, had much to do with one 
of the most dangerous forms of unbelief which have 
appeared in Protestant communities ; a form of it, 
which prevails extensively in England, and which, 
by infecting the literature of that country, and ha- 
bituating those who use parts of that literature to 
a false tone of thought and feeling, extends itself 
still more widely. The unbelief, which avows 
itself, will define itself also, and so will be met and 
examined, and may come to see its own error, and 
at least will be checked in its tendency to spread. 
But that unbelief in Christianity, which still ad- 


* Leviathan, Part III. chap. 42. (pp. 284, 285.) 


174 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE 


heres to a Christian profession and worship by 
force of an argument which half satisfies it that it 
does honestly in so doing, — the unbelief, which 
half fancies itself belief, — keeps out of the reach of 
confutation, and with the semblance of conviction 
protects itself against being convinced. If I mis- 
take not, this has been the position of a large class, 
in the parent country, whose writings we read; 
great champions of the religion, of which however 
they believe nothing, because they have not inquired 
into its evidence, and hold that it does not become 
them to inquire; good Christians in profession, — 
perhaps intolerant Christians, — because to be so 
they understand to belong to the character of good 
subjects ; fast friends to the faith, because to be so 
is a part of allegiance to the state. If I mistake 
not, this sort of feeling is in a degree a traditional 
remnant of the vast influence exerted at the time, 
on the high prerogative party, by the writings of 
Hobbes; and though, under other political institu- 
tions, there would be no opportunity for it to stand 
on its original and proper basis, still the view of 
Christianity, as something to be professed, and in 
some sort received, by reason of its claims as a use- 
ful engine of government, may be found to recom- 
mend itself by force of frequent virtual exhibitions 
of it in that light, independently of any philosoph- 
ical theory in which it may have been elaborately 
propounded. 

I am to make brief mention of two other wri- 
ters, who have not furnished us with any argument 


WRITINGS OF MONTAIGNE. 175 


against Christianity on which to comment, but 
who demand notice because of the great influence 
exerted by their works on the tone of infidel spec- 
ulation in more recent times. For the first, we 
have to go back to an earlier period than that of 
either of the last three authors mentioned. 
Montaigne, one of the most popular of writers, the 
first, | suppose, to set the fashion of that popular 
form of composition, the Essay, and who has never 
been excelled in it, was born in the year 1533. 
“As a writer,” says La Harpe, ‘he impressed 
upon the French language a sort of familiar energy 
which it did not before possess. ..... As a philoso- 
pher, he painted man as he is, without embellishing 
his subject from complaisance, or disfiguring it from 
misanthropy. His writings have a character of 
good faith, peculiar to themselves. While engaged 
with them, one does not read a book, but listen 
to a conversation. He persuades the more, be- 
cause he makes no show of instructing. He speaks 
much of himself, but in such a way as to make 
you think of yourself. He is neither vain, nor 
tedious, nor hypocritical, three things extremely 
hard to avoid when the writer is his own subject. 
He is never dry and abstract. His own mind and 
character pervade every thing. And what a mass of 
thought on every subject; what a treasure of good 
sense; what a mutual confidence is there, when 


His Essays are the book of all who read, and even 


* Cours de Littérature. Tome IV, (pp. 62, 63.) 


176 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE 


of those who do not read.” * Hallam speaks of 
these Essays as marking ‘in several respects an 
epoch in literature, less on account of their real 
importance, or the novel truths they contain, than 
of their influence on the taste and the opinions of 
Europe. They are,” he adds, “ the first provocatio 
ad populum, the first appeal from the Porch and 
the Academy to the haunts of busy and of idle man, 
the first book that taught the unlearned reader to 
observe and reflect for himself on questions of moral 
philosophy. ..... No prose writer of the sixteenth 
century has been so generally read, nor probably 
given so much delight.* | 

The connexion of this writer with our subject 
does not arise from his having defended any form 
of infidel opinion. He never distinctly defended 
or avowed any opinion on the subject. Nor do | 
suppose that it would be even safe to affirm, that he 
was a doubter respecting the truth of Christianity. 
It might be nearer to the fact to represent him as 
never having thought sufficiently on the subject 
even to doubt about it in good earnest. But he was 
a doubter about most things, which he did con- 
sider. That was characteristically the tone of his 
discussion ; and the skeptical leaning of the under- 
standing of so popular a writer, and the great indif- 
ference of his temperament, could not fail to exert 
a strong influence on crowds of admirers, and 
prepare them to deal with religion after the manner 


* Introduction, &c. Vol. II. pp. 169, 170. 


WRITINGS OF BAYLE. 177 


that he had dealt with so many other things. He 
was the literary model and master of La Mothe le 
Vayer, one of the first avowed French infidels ; 
and his writings, being speedily translated into 
English, became an extremely favorite book in the 
profligate time of King Charles the Second. And, 
while the influence of Hobbes’s speculations has, 
as I conceive, been ever since felt in the circle of 
those who would uphold religion as a machine of 
policy, that of the Essays of Montaigne has been 
equally manifested in the school of the triflers and 
scoffers, —of that numerous class whose con- 
demnations of Christianity have amounted simply 
to an exercise of wit. 

This latter class of skeptics, whether intention- 
ally or not on his part, have had, at a later time, 
another patron in the still more famous Bayle. 
While he treats with great levity matters relating 
to revealed religion, and understood by one or 
another class of believers to be comprised in it, I 
know not whether in his voluminous writings a 
sentence can be pointed out, where he speaks of 
revelation itself except with a respect apparently 
sincere. No terms can be stronger than those in 
which he expresses his persuasion of the being of 
God, and of the immateriality of the thinking prin- 
ciple, and his astonishment that any can profess to 
entertain a contrary belief; * and, in his treatment 


“E. g. Pensées Diverses. §§ 104. 107, (CEuvres, Tome III. pp. 71, 73. 
Edit. La Haye). Continuation des Pensées Diverses, § 73. (Ibid. p. 


Vor. li ue 


178 | WRITINGS OF BAYLE. 


of opinions of different Christian sects, one often 
finds cause to think that he was not so much under- 
taking to refute any one of them, as amusing 
himself by showing how many subjects of dispute 
between them offered difficulties which they had 
not suspected. But his copious erudition, — accu- 
rate and profound, too, in some departments, — 
his extraordinary wit, penetration, and acuteness, 
his adroit as well as sprightly logic, were all pressed 
into the service of a general cavilling skepticism. 
Paradox attracted him more than truth. He had 
no sincere spirit of inquiry; none of that earnest 
desire to reason well, which is the necessary condi- 
tion of good reasoning. This radical weakness of 
his mind he felt no scruple to avow. ‘ A certain 
Pyrrhonism,” says he, in one of his letters, “ 1S 
the most convenient thing in the world. With it, 
you may with impunity engage in argument with 
all comers, and set at defiance those reasonings 
drawn from opinions of your own, which are always 
so troublesome to deal with. You have never oc- 
casion to act on the defensive. You do not fear 
being retorted upon, since, maintaining nothing 
yourself, you abandon yourself with perfect freedom 
to all sorts of sophisms.” * No wonder if his ex- 
ample taught his admirers to doubt and cavil about 
every thing, whether doubted by him or not; to 
mistake a happy witticism for an irrefragable proof; 


293.) Nouvelles de la République de Lettres. Oct. 1686. Art. 8. (Ibid. 
Tome I. p. 671.) Réponse aua Questions dun Provincial. Part IIf. 
chap. 15. (Ibid. Tome III. p. 941.) 

* Lettre VI. (Euvres, Tome IV. p. 537.) 


CONCLUSION. 179 


and to adopt ridicule as being, what Lord Shaftes- 
bury would have it to be, the test of truth. 

The influence of these writers on the character 
of later assaults on revealed religion, | may here- 
after have occasion in some instances to trace. 
Having in the present course of Lectures executed 
a plan, in which I hope it may be thought that 
there has been a sort of completeness, by attempt- 
ing some account, first, of the Jewish objections to 
Christianity ; secondly, of the Pagan objections ; 
and, thirdly, of the deistical @ priori objections ; 
followed by a brief notice of the influence of three 
writers, whom I conceive to have done much 
towards giving a tone to later habits of thought 
‘upon the subject; my next object would be to take 
a survey of the principal! topics of mfidel argument 
in more recent times down to the present. 


Aut 


A a OS a aa 
a : e ee 6 . 
‘ i were ¥ ai ; ore ay 7 
; icity 


| oe 
|. pig a rr sci a | 
goriod eis, eokgay, bo se " 

- east OO perianal spa: thy RCNA 
Ragan apimin: mh: 0 NERO : 

sight idiqnods. tli quot 2% jaro ead 
stators: ch capanonpligmnos, “ha ee: sim 


i oe. aaMOne rite os ihosh te? nl, ale: ey het, Haesauoniti 
A eereateda weet eth, hes, tibnose: na 
maaaltoide., coy ey mh liege ada) slbeiit “gr | 
mortal he aragncomabtcite aly Ae wei ate, Roba ax gah Lenadadli 
veer: gaa, tied why OR, Fi, sade: “pent 
whyynt hy, plided. soni ag. By pitlinige ‘whaminentd 
eh’, oh 5 *i bheoy hid ie spas Ra wtp 
. 2 oy att 
fy nia Ma rey} 
\ ' Sabi bet is 
an ae Ati. Pye TiN ie Gane! . : | di ae 
aad wh, {Beh aia, yy eg iad aa 
I i poste 
cvs Pe ve eh 
! } : i Mi ae * + ie BY 
oon dae vm Wy a a ie ay ties ih ni ay ae: 
MC) Pe Mera area ty eo i al aaa aa ae 
i ike . : MAG ry Wao wan Chat Na CaaS a ama". Ma ie, - Arey 
i ie MW a i i i “eo ale re bam * | 
bE i eee ae Viste “ ory Meanie a Ali ae f 


COURSE III. 


SURVEY OF THE OPINIONS OF SEVERAL 
MODERN WRITERS. 


PINE CK SEA oy CR ete 
> i : 


wud ea) 


‘ i ga ARR ds 


iy allie ee oe 
ix ena ee ee SPOS) Jer cr cenae 
, RE Re | Ariat Pagar ath ie ale Maid vag i 
uM ead i NRE ORT AREA 
UA y TS tatty ha ey we oer ees re 
Cth Dsumalh, vitepial: apa eke 
i ane a: RaonminesshiNe ae 
: le iid Laird 
EAC Al foro all bible 
ate iG Bhieh 1 ip i? Rhygrrewione Pony iwy: hy 


te 


ds tid ped iad ve A AR ei all 
ease yh . ee Bret iN ee 
A ss, ap en WR et ds ae Henke 
; ayer "Tn Gee e ie ee malar a the viqehe 
ie on Gh toate ef re Hain bevy 
Aa uti Des aa a 


sels 
Ml 

4 :, 
I 
‘hk 
, + i a i, 
: 1h) Aer ace 
’ i 7 A wat 
ro 4 as Pee a es Oy eT ane d a hae), r Sani ee i 


BEC TU oer. 


OBJECTIONS OF LORD SHAFTESBURY AND LORD 
BOLINGBROKE. 


In commencing, last winter, a course of remark 
upon the objections which have been made, from 
time to time, to Christianity, by disbelievers of 
that religion, I suggested that the reasons succes- 
sively produced by that acute and industrious class 
of writers in justification of their dissent, might 
safely be presumed to be all the reasons that were 
to be had, or, at any rate, the best reasons ; so that, 
should they prove, on examination, to be without 
cogency, the fair inference would be, that the di- 
vine origin of Christianity stood unimpeached and 
unimpeachable. If, as to the facts of that religion, 
there was any thing falsely alleged by its early dis- 
ciples, its early adversaries were favorably circum- 
stanced for an exposure of the fraud; if in its the- 
_ ory there was any thing indefensible, the progress 
of intelligence would have aided its later opponents 
in dragging the error to light. Further, such a sur- 


184 OBJECTIONS OF 


vey as was proposed might correct erroneous impres- 
sions respecting the extent of the resources of infi- 
delity, while it would not unfrequently exhibit the 
champions of unbelief wresting its weapons from 
each other’s hands, and would, in not a few in- 
stances, supply facts to the friend of Christianity 
in the form of admissions of its early foes, which in 
that form might be thought more valuable, because 
more unquestionable, than any assertion on the 
part of its advocates. 

I must not fatigue my present audience with a 
recapitulation, — which, however I might endeavour 
to condense it, would still cover considerable ground, 
— of the course heretofore pursued towards the fill- 
ing out of this scheme. I confine myself to the few 
words necessary to indicate the point, from which 
we take our new departure. I gave an account of 
three controversies ; 1. Of the controversy of Chris- 
tianity with Judaism; 2. Of its controversy with 
Paganism ; and, 3. Of that, which I called by the 
name of the deistical & priori controversy. 

Under the first of these heads, I undertook to 
explain that state of the Jewish mind, which led to 
the general rejection of our religion, when first 
published, by that people, illustrating this subject 
from the New Testament, the writings of Josephus, 
and the Jewish ‘Talmuds; and then proceeded to 
give a full account of the Dialogue of Justin Martyr 
with Trypho the Jew in the second century, of the 
contents of certain Jewish tracts of the Middle 
Ages, and of the modern discussion between the 


LORD SHAFTESBURY. 185 


Jew Orobio and Philip Limborch of Amsterdam. 
Under the second head, I presented an analysis 
of the hostile arguments of the Epicurean phi- 
losopher Celsus in the second century, of Por- 
phyry, the Eclectic, in the third, and of Hierocles 
and the Emperor Julian in the fourth, as well as of 
writings of some of the Christian fathers, show- 
ing what were the objections of Paganism against 
Christianity before and at the time when it became 
the religion of the empire ; and in this review it was 
my object to point out, on the one hand, the inva- 
lidity of those objections under their several heads, 
and, on the other hand, to show how extremely ma- 
terial were the admissions of facts belonging to the 
history of Christianity, either distinctly or virtually 
made, at that early day, in the hostile quarters. 
Passing hastily over the ages of security against 
foreign assault, which elapsed between the political 
establishment of Christianity and the Protestant 
reformation, three hundred years ago, and making a 
few remarks on the general character of the modern 
infidel writings, I invited attention to what was 
called the deistical & priort argument, as exhibited 
in the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and 
Matthew ‘Tindal. And the course closed with a 
few observations on the writings of Hobbes, Mon- 
taigne, and Bayle, to the last two of which writers, 
though they maintained no argument against Chris- 
tianity, was ascribed a considerable influence over 
the conduct of that argument in times succeeding 
their own. 
Vor. Il. 24 


186 OBJECTIONS OF 


The former survey, to which I refer, exhibited 
no modern writer, except Lord Herbert, as having 
appeared in declared opposition to the Christian 
faith, at any period earlier than a hundred and 
thirty yearsago.* With this exception, all set treat- 
ises of that sort, produced in Christian communi- 
ties, belong in fact to that recent time. We are 
sometimes perhaps inclined to think, that the pres- 
ent is a perilous time for our religion; but it would 
be expressing a wiser judgment to say, that its great 
battle was fought in the first half of the last cen- 
tury. England, from its political condition as well 
as from the philosophical and scrutinizing habits of 
the national mind, naturally took the lead of other 
nations, in both the attack and the defence. It 
was fully to be expected, that, when the Reforma- 
tion had removed Christianity in Protestant coun- 
tries from that basis of authority on which it had 
reposed for ages, the question would speedily come 
to be asked, whether it had any more stable foun- 
dation. It was asked and answered, at first, pri- 
vately, in discourse between man and man; and 
soon publicly, in able and learned controversial 
writings. And while Toland, Morgan, Woolston, 
Bolingbroke, Chubb, Collins, and other learned 
adversaries of the faith, a hundred years ago, left 
little unsaid, for disputants of the same character in 


* Though some of Toland’s writings appeared at an earlier time, he did 
not take distinct infidel ground, till the publication of his Pantheisticon 
in 1720. And Charles Blount’s works were only translations from Phi- 
lostratus and Lord Herbert. 


LORD SHAFTESBURY. 187 


later time to supply, the inquiry to which they 
invited was pursued on the other hand by minds of 
such note as those of Addison, Warburton, Clarke, 
Locke, and Butler. It was then, as future history 
will record, that the credit of our religion passed 
through its great crisis. There is not much, in the 
writings of later infidels, which is not mere repeti- 
tion of their abler predecessors. 

That incredulity, which, in some quarters, was 
the natural consequence of the ignorance of the 
laity, in times preceding the Reformation, concern- 
ing the history of Christianity, and which could not 
fail to manifest itself sooner or later, and so to call 
for the knowledge which would dispel it, appeared 
the earlier in Great Britain, as has been hinted, on 
account of the course of public events in that na- 
tion. “Skepticism,” says the French writer Ville- 
main, referring to the time of Cromwell, “ both in 
respect to religion and to politics, was left as the 
refuse, as the extinguished cinder, of the recent 
conflagration which had wrapped all England.” * 
It was in that period, it will be remembered, that 
the mind of Lord Herbert was trained ; and doubt- 
less similar biases were communicated to numerous 
other leading minds, which have not left their 
doubts on record. The social system, and with it 
the world of thought, received a new shock in the 
period immediately preceding and following the 
revolution, which brought the house of Orange to 
the English throne in 1688. The loose and super- 


* Cours de Littérature Francaise, Tome I. p. 142. 


188 OBJECTIONS OF 


ficial tone of thinking of the licentious time of 
Charles the Second was further encouraged, as to 
the skeptical turn which it took in relation to all 
ereat subjects, by the popularity acquired, in the 
cultivated circles, by the writings of Montaigne, 
which were largely circulated in England in a 
translation. The stern and bitter bigotry of the 
Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, ex- 
cited a sort of latitudinarian antagonism ; the friends 
of political liberty not unnaturally became free- 
thinkers in religion; and the safe times of William 
and of Anne, next succeeding, favored the utter- 
ance of those misgivings and discontents, which, 
under such influences, not a few vigorous and ac- 
complished minds had unhappily come to entertain. 

The spirit and results of the English infidel argu- 
ments of this period are described by the German 
historian Staudlin with a good sense and a justness 
of observation, not common with the writers of his 
nation. ‘In England,” says he, ‘¢ Christianity was 
attacked with more calmness, discretion, and digni- 
ty than in France, since there men might write more 
freely, on that subject as on all others, as they had 
not public persecutions and penalties to dread, and 
might view the subject as one deeply concerning 
society and man, instead of looking at it through 
side lights, under an impulse of hatred to an hierar- 
Oty. art vedsile Yet the more these writings were 
read, the less on the whole did they injure religion, 
or weaken the attachment of the nation to the 
Christian faith. It might even be affirmed that 


LORD SHAFTESBURY. 189 


they injured it more abroad, than in the country of 
their origin.” * 

Of the writers, whom I am now to proceed to 
mention, the first, in point of time, was Anthony 
Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. From _ his 
erandfather, the many-sided statesman of the time 
of the Commonwealth and of Charles the Second, 
he did not inherit that profligacy of political princi- 
ple, which has made the name of the first Lord 
Shaftesbury one of the most unfavorably eminent 
in history ; on the contrary, his dispositions m pub- 
lic and in private life were magnanimous, and the 
purity of his morals without stain. But, without 
doubt, other influences from his distinguished rela- 
tive had unhappily biassed his mind. The elder 
Lord Shaftesbury, always immersed in intrigues, 
and utterly distrustful of those pretensions to vir- 
tue, which he knew would be for himself so idle, 
was, by temperament and the influences of the 
time, an infidel; and something of his style of 
thought could scarcely fail to be communicated to 
a youth, on whose education he bestowed a sedu- 
lous attention. The catastrophe of his life, —a 
martyrdom, as a partial view might well regard it, 
to religious and political bigotry combined, —might 
naturally create, in one interested in his fate, an 
estrangement from the apparent cause of his mis- 
fortunes. And another influence, which may be 
presumed to have acted powerfully on the mind of 
the noble author of the “ Characteristics,” was the 


* Geschichte der Theologischen Wissenchaften, Th. II. s. 424. 


190 OBJECTIONS OF 


friendship, which, at an early age, he formed in Hol- 
land with Peter Bayle, whose writings, as I formerly 
observed, while they have never directly attacked 
Christianity, deal with other great subjects in a 
light and skeptical vein, which it is no wonder that 
their admirers should catch, and apply to discussions 
of that religion. It is however not altogether with- 
out qualification, that Lord Shaftesbury is to be reck- 
oned among unbelievers in Christianity. There is 
no evidence that he ever set himself deliberately to 
form an opinion upon the subject ; and of the learn- 
ing which would have been necessary to satisfy so 
Sagacious a mind as his, that he was rejecting that 
religion on sufficient grounds, he certainly possessed 
but asmall share. The disaffection towards it which 
had taken possession of his mind, was a matter of 
taste and feeling, rather than of conviction. Sir 
James Mackintosh says of him, “'The enmity of the 
majority of churchmen to the government estab- 
lished at the Revolution, was calculated to fill his 
mind with angry feelings, which overflow too often, 
if not upon Christianity itself, yet upon representa- 
tions of it closely intertwined with those religious 
feelings, to which in other forms, his own philoso- 
phy ascribes surpassing worth.” * 

Lord Shaftesbury’s writings, carefully prepared 
by himself, were published after his death in the 
year 1713, under the title of ‘Characteristics of 
Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times,” the greater 
part of the three volumes having however appeared 


* View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, p. 333. 


LORD SHAFTESBURY. 191 


in separate treatises during the last five years of his 
life. He who shall examine their extremely dis- 
cursive contents with a view to ascertain their wri- 
ter’s religious sentiments, will have occasion to ob- 
serve, in the first place, that he has left no room for 
doubt respecting his belief in a Deity, and in the 
reverence and worship due to him. ‘ Man,” he 
says, ‘is not only born to virtue, friendship, hon- 
esty, and faith, but to religion, piety, adoration, and 
a generous surrender of his mind to whatever hap- 
pens from that supreme cause, or order of things, 
which he acknowledges entirely just and perfect.” * 

He speaks of the Christian miracles, in a way to 
show that his own mind has failed to be impressed 
with their reality, but not in the way of presenting 
any view suited to shake the conviction of any other 
mind, or to afford opportunity for any argument in 
their defence. When, for instance, in that unpleas- 
ant vein of irony, in which Gibbon appears after- 
wards to have taken him for a model, he says, that, 
as to what is recorded of miracles in former ages, ‘he 
pretends not to frame any certain or positive opinion 
of his own, notwithstanding his best searches into 
antiquity, and the nature of religious record and 
tradition, but on all occasions submits most willing- 
ly, and with full confidence and trust, to the opin- 
ions by law established,” {— and more, in other 
places, to the same effect, — one sees that what he 
chiefly needed was, to look at the evidence with 


* Characteristics, &c. Vol. III. p. 224. (Edit. 5th.) 
t Ibid. p. 71. Compare I. 360; II. 353; III. 316. 


192 OBJECTIONS OF 


greater sobriety of mind, and that, had he so looked 
at it, he would not have spoken thus, whether con- 
vinced or still incredulous. 

The same is true of his expression of doubts 
respecting the authenticity and integrity of the 
sacred books, —doubts extremely natural to be en- 
tertained, in the age when he lived, especially by a 
person inclined to historical skepticism, but which, 
had he lived at the present time, since the subject 
has been examined both by friends and foes, he 
would, if he had not abandoned them, at least have 
expressed with a different kind of specification. He 
approaches nearest to a distinct argument against 
Christianity in his complaints of it, as an ethical 
system, for not sufficiently enforcing the importance 
of friendship, love of kindred, and the virtues 
which uphold society ;* and in those speculations 
on the nature of virtue, in which he insists that it 
must be loved and practised without selfishness, 
for its own sake, and that any regard to reward 
consequent on its observance, or punishment on its 
violation, vitiates its motive, and so destroys its 
essence. But, as to the latter point, his own no- 
tion of disinterested goodness is certainly no higher 
than what the Gospel constantly enjoins; nor does 
the place which he himself with great zeal assigns, 
in a theory of morals, to the satisfactions inci- 
dent to virtue, and the ill results of its opposite, at 
all differ from that assigned to them in the Chris- 
tian scheme.t And, as to the other complaint, 


* Characteristics, &c. Vol. II. p. 68. t Ibid. p. 99. 


LORD SHAFTESBURY. 193 


the aptness to all offices of friendship and patriotism, 
of a character formed under the Christian discipline, 
is so manifest, — while such good reasons appear, 
in the circumstances of the time when Christianity 
was revealed, why it should lay its chief stress on 
universal benevolence, or philanthropy, rather than 
on any such limitations of the sentiment as appear 
in love of friends or of country, — that such an ob- 
jection can hardly be supposed to take a prominent 
place in any mind; nor is the cursory way, in which 
it is suggested by the writer now under our notice, 
such as to indicate that his own mind was much 
impressed with its validity. 

I have considered it proper to say thus much of 
Lord Shaftesbury, because of his high traditional 
reputation, and of the early date of his speculations. 
But there is no defence of Christianity to be made 
against his writings, because in truth they do not 
contain a justification of his unbelief, but, at the 
most, a profession of it; and | think they might be 
put into the hands of almost any person of tolera- 
bée judgement at the present day without the slightest 
danger of shaking his faith. ‘To say of him what 
Johnson said of Chesterfield, that he was ‘a wit 
among lords, and a lord among wits,” would indeed 
be totally unjust. ‘To distinguished integrity, amia- 
bleness, and generosity, Lord Shaftesbury added 
the endowments of a lively, graceful, and accom- 
plished understanding ; but he had none of the 
proper preparation of learning for the discussion of 
that momentous subject of revealed religion, on 

Vot. II. 25 


194, OBJECTIONS OF 


which he permitted himself to throw out his crude 
thoughts. In one of his notes, he makes some re- 
marks on Seneca, which, with alterations for the 
diverse subjects of their inquiries, might not ill be 
applied to his own case. ‘ ‘There is great differ- 
ence,” he says, “‘ between a courtier who takes a 
fancy for philosophy, and a philosopher who should 
take a fancy for a court. Now Seneca was born a 
courtier, being son of a court-rhetor; himself bred 
in the same manner, and taken into favor for his 
wit and genius, his admired style and elegance, not 
for his learning in the books of philosophy and the 
ancients [applied to Lord Shaftesbury, this should 
read, ‘‘not for his learning in the history or docu- 
ments of the Christian faith.”] For this indeed 
was not very profound in him. In short, he was 
a man of wonderful wit, fluency of thought and 
language, an able minister and honest courtier.” * 
In making large application of his own maxim, 
that ridicule is the test of truth, t (his, I call it, but 
he borrowed it from Horace, t who stated it with 
careful qualification,) Lord Shaftesbury often sup- 
posed himself to be arguing, when really he was 
doing nothing less. Indeed, instead of bemg a 
maxim, as it assumes to be, it is not so much as a 
truth. There are many things false, which so far 
from being fit to excite ridicule, cannot possibly be 
viewed except with grief or horror; while, on the 
other hand, every thing which wears an antiquated 


* Characteristics, &c. Vol. III. p. 24. 
T Ibid. Vol. I. pp. 11, 18, 61, 128. + Sato lew 1s 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 195 


costume, and is opposed to present conventional- 
isms, has, to such as look only on the surface, an 
air of ridicule, though it may enfold truth the most 
unassailable and momentous. ‘The fallacy, how- 
ever, to which Lord Shaftesbury gave currency, 
both by precept and example, has since been effect- 
ively used by Paine and other infidels of his class. 
If I should limit myself to proceed strictly in the 
order of time, I should have to reserve for a some- 
what later stage of these remarks, my notice of 
the opinions of Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. 
But, as in the case of Tindal, whose writings, from 
the similarity of their argument, | treated, by an- 
ticipation, along with those of Lord Herbert, it is 
convenient now to place together the works of two 
authors, who not only in the circumstances of their 
social position, but in some characters of their minds 
and their speculations, exhibited traits of strong 
mutual resemblance. The splendid fame of the 
parliamentary eloquence of Bolingbroke rests wholly 
on tradition, no specimens of it having been pre- 
served. It was such as to lead Lord Chatham to 
say, that, if the question were between recovering 
the lost books of Livy or of Tacitus, or a Latin 
Tragedy, or a speech of Bolingbroke, his choice 
would fall upon the last ; and this judgment is fully 
borne out by the rich and polished eloquence of his 
written discourses, which, in the melody, point and 
vigor of their style, seem as if composed to be 
spoken. But they furnish nothing whatever to 
refute the inference, which is enforced by the whole 


196 OBJECTIONS OF 


history both of the public and private life of their 
author, that he was destitute of that love of truth, 
which is the indispensable attribute of a really 
ereat man. It was not only, that, in the prosecu- 
tion of the objects of his public career, he descended 
to the most flagitious perfidy, as he was too much 
warranted in doing by the example of other poli- 
ticians of the day, but, what is more to our purpose, 
that there appeared a want of affinity between his 
mind and speculative truth, remarkable in a mind 
of such distinguished powers; so that the reader 
plainly sees, that he did not crave truth as the fruit 
of his inquiries; that he philosophized without any 
earnest care to convince, or even so much as to dis- 
cover and determine ; that he was almost satisfied 
with the ingenious, or even the superficial, sugges - 
tion of difficulties and objections, which he left to 
be solved by whoever might feel interest enough in 
the result. There are no doubt vigorous statements, 
in his works, of such objections to our religion, as 
naturally occur to, and deserve, the notice of one 
who would pass an intelligent judgment upon its 
claims. But there are others, which, in the way 
that they are thrown out, only serve to indicate 
the uninformed and unsettled state of the writer’s 
mind, both in respect to their foundation in fact, 
and to their bearings on the main issue. 

The writings in which the sentiments of Lord 
Bolingbroke concerning Christianity are expressed, 
were published, after his death in 1751, by the poet 
Mallet, to whom he had bequeathed them in his 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 108 


will. They consist of a series of ‘“ Letters on the 
Study and Use of History,” and a number of 
« Essays”? on metaphysical, moral and religious 
~ subjects, addressed to Alexander Pope. ‘The dis- 
cursive character of this species of composition 
forbids the reader to look for any thing in the na- 
ture of compact and elaborate reasoning. Some of 
this writer’s suggestions respecting Christianity, — 
for those relating to Natural Religion do not belong 
to our subject, — are of that vague or otherwise 
undeterminable character, which admit of no argu- 
mentative reply. When, for instance, he insists 
that the time of “the resurrection of letters was a 
fatal period” for Christianity,* and describes it as 
only suited to live in a time of ignorance and super- 
stition, there is nothing for the believer to do but 
to express his opposite conviction, that advancing 
knowledge and civilization have brought and will 
bring it new support, and to appeal to future time 
for the confirmation of his better view. ‘The main 
objections of a tangible description, which are found 
scattered, without method and in various forms of 
repetition, over these treatises, may, I think, be defi- 
nitely stated as falling under the following heads. 

1. That, the truths of natural religion being clear 
and sufficient, there was no need of any special 
divine interposition at the time when Christianity 
is said to have been revealed, and that accordingly 


* On the Study and Use of History, Letter V. (Works, Vol. II. p. 2338. 
Edit. Philad.) 


198 OBJECTIONS OF 


such a revelation at that time is incredible.* This 
question I treated at large in my third Lecture, 
showing from ample historical testimonies that the 
contrary was the fact ; and it would be mere repe- 
tition now to return to that argument. ~ 

2. He has called in question the credibility of 
the Gospel records of the acts and discourses of 
Jesus; denying that there is sufficient proof of the 
authenticity of those documents, or of their uncor- 
rupt preservation to the present time.t But Lord 
Bolingbroke has left no proof of acquaintance 
with the well-established facts relating to this all- 
important point. It was treated at large in two 
former Lectures, and the remarks then made cover 
all the ground which he has opened. 

3. Lord Bolingbroke finds objections to the credi- 
bility of Christianity in the limited extent to which 
it was originally promulgated, and in the partial 
effects which it has produced. { These objections 
had before been urged by Tindal, and have also 
already received our attention. § 

4. He undertakes to account for the rapid early 
diffusion of Christianity, on the supposition of mere- 
ly human agency. || In this he was followed, with 
a very free use of his thoughts, but with additional 
materials of his own, by the historian Gibbon, 
whose views on this subject I formerly examined, 


* See particularly, Fragments of Essays, 23 —28, 33, 34. (Works, 
Vol. IV. pp. 246. et seq. 283, et seq.) 

t Letter V. (Vol. II. p. 231, et seg.) Essay IV. §§ 18, 19. (Vol. III. p. 468.) 

+ Fragments of Essays, §§ 33, 38. (Vol. IV. pp. 283, et seg. 307, et seq.) 

§ See above, p. 154, et seq. 

|| Lssay IV. § 23. (Vol. IIT. p. 498, et seq.) 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 199 


presenting then all that I conceive requires to be 
said concerning it. * 

But, among the points raised by Lord Boling- 
broke, there are others, which have not hitherto 
fallen particularly under our notice, at least in the 
form which he has given to them. 

5. He has objected to the contents of the New 
Testament. And his scattered objections under this 
head may be conveniently arranged under four spe- 
cifications ; 1. that there are doctrines of the Gospel 
so unreasonable as to discredit its divine original ; 
2. that its ethical system is imperfect and errone- 
ous; 3. that the sense of the scriptural records is 
in many instances uncertain; 4. that the religion 
of Jesus, as taught by himself, is contradicted by it, 
as taught by Paul. 

As to the first point, the alleged unreasonableness 
of doctrines of the Gospel, it is necessary to define 
precisely the position intended to be taken. The 
friends of Christianity must concede, and all intelli- 
gent defenders of it have conceded, that, could it be 
shown to contain any thing unequivocally opposed 
to, and irreconcilable with, man’s reason or moral 
sense, that discovery would be fatal to its credit. 
It is a conviction of the preliminary fact, that it con- 
tains nothing of that kind, which makes it worth a 
reasonable man’s while to proceed to an examina- 
tion of the positive evidence in its favor; which 
makes it, in short, provable to a reasonable man. 
It may also properly be admitted, that, if any system 


* See Vol. I. p. 248, ef seq. 


200 EVANGELICAL DOCTRINES. 


of doctrine is found to contain particulars, which to 
any mind appear, on speculative grounds, improba- 
ble, or highly improbable, that mind will reasonably 
approach the testimony offered in its behalf under a 
bias proportionably unfavorable. But, so much al- 
lowed, it will only amount to this ; — that the ques- 
tions, which that mind will have to weigh, will be ; 
first, Is the doctrine, to which, on speculative grounds, 
I am averse, really contained in the system proposed 
for my acceptance ? and if so, then, secondly, Which 
is most likely, that I am in error as to my precon- 
ceived speculative opinion, or as to the force of that 
external evidence, which, if yielded to, will compel 
me to set that opinion aside? It is but the common 
case of a conflict between opposite proofs. ‘That is 
all. And it is a case, in the adjustment of which it 
may not improbably turn out, that the preconceived 
opinion had been adopted on hght grounds; in 
other words, that the doctrine which has occa- 
sioned a repugnance to the system embracing it, 
is not at all unreasonable, but the contrary. 

Lord Bolingbroke attempts to sustain his charge 
against the Christian faith, as presenting a theory 
so manifestly unreasonable, as to refute its claim to 
credit, by referring to the doctrine of a satisfaction 
made to God by the death of Jesus for the sins of 
men, and to that of the retributions of the future 
life. As to the first, his language is, ‘‘’The fall of 
man, the foundation of the fundamental article of 
the Christian faith, is irreconcilable to every idea 
we can frame of the wisdom, justice, and goodness, 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 201 


to say nothing of the dignity, of the Supreme Be- 
ing ;”* and he represents it as contrary to our ideas 
of God’s moral attributes, “to believe that he sent 
his only begotten son, who had not offended him, 
to be sacrificed for men who had offended him, that 
he might expiate their sins, and satisfy his own 
anger.” + As I do not myself allow this doctrine, 
as described by Lord Bolingbroke, to be any part 
of Christianity, I have no occasion to defend its 
reasonableness, in order to protect Christianity from 
any unfavorable inference because of it. To me it 
seems unreasonable, as it did to him; but I do not 
find that Christianity is responsible for it. There 
are others, however, who think otherwise ; and, for 
any person who should esteem it unreasonable, and 
who should also be satisfied of its being a doctrine 
of Christianity, the only question would be, whether 
it was so clearly and certainly unreasonable, as to 
overbalance and invalidate the positive proof ad- 
duced in support of that system of which it makes 
part. And the application of the same remark to 
the other doctrine, of future retribution, — also, I 
conceive, disingenuously stated by Lord Boling- 
broke, particularly in respect to its being repre- 
sented as having no reference to different degrees 
of good or ill desert, {—Jis so obvious as not to 
require to be enlarged upon. 

The second point of objection to the contents of 
the New Testament on the part of this author, 


“ Fragments of Essays, § 36. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 301.) 
t Ibid. § 37. (p. 304.) t Ibid. § 68. (p. 442, et seq.) 
Vor. il: 26 


202 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. 


which I have specified, is directed against its ethical 
system, as being imperfect and erroneous. 

As to its being imperfect,* it has been commonly 
allowed by unbelievers, and must be allowed by 
every fair observer, to possess the only desirable 
practical completeness, in supplying all actually 
existing defects in the natural law of conscience, 
particularly those which had been created in the 
course of time by perversions of custom and opin- 
ion; while, in respect to the rest, it has been said 
with unquestionable justness, that the proper design 
of a revelation was, ‘to supply motives, and not 
rules, sanctions and not precepts, the former being 
what mankind stood most in need of.” + Of Lord 
Bolingbroke’s argument against the correctness of 
the ethical system of Christianity, I need say no 
more, than that the instances on which he most 
relies are, its prohibitions of polygamy and of di- 
vorce, which in his opinion should have been left 
free. { It is however certain, that the doctrine of 
Christianity on these subjects, so far from reflecting 
discredit on its claims, 1s the same which, indepen- 
dently of its authority, has been approved by the best 
writers upon morals; and that those very Christian 
laws, by force of the authority, as Christian, with 
which they were pronounced, have been the effect- 
ive means of raising one half of the human race to 
a condition of dignified usefulness and enjoyment ; 


* Essay, IV. § 7. (Works, Vol. III. p. 406.) 
t Paley, View of the Evidences, Part II. chap. 2. 
t Fragments of Essays, § 18. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 222, et seq.) 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 203 


of bringing every son and daughter of Christen- 
dom under the ineffably purifying and elevating 
influences of home ; and thus of changing the whole 
face of society within that range of civilization 
which is actually conterminous with Christendom. 
The third point of objection, on Lord Boling- 
broke’s part, to the contents of the New ‘Testament, 
is, that their sense is in many instances uncertain.” 
The objection, in this general statement, 1s ex- 
ceedingly vague, and for that reason difficult to 
fasten upon, in a way to meet it with a definite reply. 
It affords opportunity to say little else than this, that 
it can by no means be shown to be of obscure or 
uncertain sense in regard to the main features of 
the system; and that, as to that degree of uncer- 
tainty respecting the interpretation of its records, 
which may be alleged to be proved by the differ- 
ences of opinion among its disciples, it only shares 
in this a universal condition of all the great subjects 
of human thought ; —a condition, too, undoubtedly 
attended with excellent effects, both in the way of 
sustaining an energetic action of the mind of believ- 
ers upon it, and in the way of its moral influence. 
But this train of thought, also, I had before 
occasion to follow out in remarking upon the work 
of Tindal, + who had urged the same objection ; and 
I should not again have adverted to it, even in these 
few words, except to say, that, — however vague the 
objection in a general statement, — in that form, in 


* On the Study and Use of History, Letter V. (Vol. Il. p. 232.) Es- 
say 1V. $17, et seg. (Vol. III. p. 464.) 
t See above, p. 161. 


204, DOCTRINE OF JESUS AND OF PAUL. 


which Lord Bolingbroke has most expressly pre- 
sented it, it becomes quite definite and manageable. 
He has taken the bold step of instituting an unfavor- 
able comparison of revealed religion with natural, in 
respect to the clearness of its teachings. His lan- 
guage is, “ The first principles of natural religion are 
so simple and plain, that casuistry has no apparent 
pretence to meddle with them; ..... these prin- 
ciples want neither paraphrase nor commentary to 
be sufficiently understood, whereas the very first 
principles of the Christian religion ..... are So 
veiled in mystery of language, that without a com- 
ment or with one, they give us no clear and distinct 
ideas.” * What ambiguity was intended to lark 
here in the expression “ the first principles of natu- 
ral religion,” rendering it possible to defend the as- 
sertion of their clearness, one could not safely un- 
dertake to say. But as to any thing like a system 
of natural religion, — which is the only thing that 
could be spoken of, with pertinency to this argu- 
ment, — either all the history of ancient opinion is 
false, or else natural religion, so far from possessing 
a clearness such as justifies a favorable comparison 
of it, in that respect, with revealed, has been a 
subject the most fruitful in an endless diversity of 
opinion, and pertinacity of debate. 

The fourth particular of objection by this writer to 
the contents of the New Testament is found in the 
alleged inconsistency t between the doctrine of Jesus 


* Fragments of Essays, § 8. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 173.) 
t Essay, 1V. § 9. (Works, Vol. III. p. 420.) 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 205 


and that of Paul. What is material to this argu- 
ment is, of course, to show the actual existence of 
such an inconsistency. Could its existence be sub- 
stantiated, the objection would be valid, at least 
against the doctrine of Paul, and, under certain 
supposable conditions, against the doctrine of Jesus 
also. But the burden of proof is evidently on him 
who alleges such an inconsistency to exist; and the 
proof would of necessity consist in a course of exe- 
getical argument upon the discourses of Jesus, and 
the epistles of Paul, such as would fix an interpre- 
tation upon the one irreconcilable with the sense of 
the other. But Lord Bolingbroke, with all his great 
accomplishments, had no scholarship of the kind 
necessary for pursuing that argument ; an argument 
which needs to be made out, if at all, by learned 
investigation, for the common reader certainly will 
not admit its force. Had he possessed and used 
such learning, it is likely he would have ended, as 
others have done who have possessed and used it, 
in discovering that the argument could not be 
maintained. 

6. Once more; a leading topic of objection, on 
this writer’s part, to Christianity, is furnished in a 
course of animadversions on the system and scrip- 
tures of the Jewish faith, which Christianity so re- 
cognises and adopts as to make itself responsible for 
them in some sense and degree. He labors this point 
with such fulness as renders it probable that it was 
this which first and chiefly affected his own mind. 
He denies the authenticity and integrity of the Old 


206 ADMISSIONS OF 


Testament scriptures, and charges them with con- 
taining scarcely any thing that is not repugnant to the 
wisdom, power, and other attributes of a Supreme, 
All-perfect Being.* Here is undoubtedly the strong 
point of his reasoning; strong, not because of any 
essential cogency, but because, the real connexion 
of the New Testament with the Old being perhaps 
not even to the present day properly understood by 
Christians, he had an advantage in the vague con- 
ceptions of those whom he addressed. 

That subject has relations altogether too impor- 
tant to be discussed at the end of a lecture, nor 
does Lord Bolingbroke present it with the same 
definiteness as other writers; for instance, Voltaire 
and Paine. I reserve it accordingly for future con- 
sideration, when I shall come presently to speak of 
their writings ; and I will say no more of the con- 
tents of those of Lord Bolingbroke, except that he 
expressly disclaims for himself any reliance upon 
some objections, which before or since his day have 
been urged by certain other infidel writers. He 
condemns, for instance, the notion ‘that miracles 
are not to be admitted as proofs of a divine original,” 
and says, “‘ We know now that real miracles can be 
operated by no power but that of God, nor for any 
purpose, by consequence, but such as infinite wis- 
dom and truth direct and sanctify.” + He does not 


*E. g. On the Study and Use of History. Letter III. chap. 2. 
(Works, Vol. II. p. 200.) Fragments of Essays, § 71. (Vol. IV. p. 456.) 
§ 76. (Ibid. p. 473.) 

t Essay IV. § 2. (Works, Vol. III. p. 359.) 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 207 


pretend, with Tindal, that the positive institutions 
of Christianity present an objection to its credit as 
of a divine original, but on the contrary he declares, 
concerning the ordinances of baptism and_ the 
Lord’s supper, that “they were not only innocent 
but profitable ceremonies, because they were ex- 
tremely proper to keep up the spirit of true natu- 
ral religion, by keeping up that of Christianity, 
and to promote the observation of moral duties, by 
maintaining a respect for the revelation which con- 
firmed them.” * And, as to the beneficial influence 
of this faith, he says that “no religion ever appeared 
in the world, whose natural tendency was so much 
directed to promote the peace and happiness of 
mankind.” fT 

I am sensible that, in the account now attempted 
of the writings of Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Bo- 
lingbroke, little has been offered in the way of 
direct argument in defence of our religion ; but it 
was impossible to pass over two writers of such dis- 
tinction, even though, in describing the contents of 
their works, it appeared, as to a considerable portion, 
to be the fittest course, merely to refer to a past or 
future treatment of the same argument, in a differ- 
ent connexion, in this series of Lectures. ‘The 
truth is, unless I err, that, great as were the abili- 
ties of both, there is no single argument stated by 
either, which has not been more effectively urged 
in some other quarter. They partly repeated views 
which had been more fully presented before, and 


* Essay IV. § 7. (Vol. IIL. p. 410.) t Ibid. § 5. (p. 396.) 


208 LORD SHAFTESBURY AND 


partly they furnished hints which were afterwards 
more fully followed out, with the help of a learning 
which they had not to apply. Their writings sug- 
gest to the considerate reader the reflection, how 
much effect may unhappily be produced by a confi- 
dent pretension of reasoning, with little of that honest 
and cautious production of appreciable evidence, 
which alone has a right to influence a reasonable 
mind ; or even by the mere off-hand suggestion of 
uncertainties, concerning which the writer himself 
has not been at the pains to learn whether to him- 
self they would not cease to be uncertainties, on 
being subjected to a proper investigation. 

Of the different classes of minds indisposed to 
Christianity, one is that which may be called by the 
name of the philosophical wits. This class, to 
which Gibbon belonged, and of which Shaftesbury 
and Bolingbroke are perhaps the most eminent 
examples, are accustomed to enjoy their leisure, 
and parade their resources, in sporting with, and 
exercising their ingenuity upon, whatever grave 
subject of common concern any accident may cause 
them to select, whether of morals, politics, or reli- 
gion, — but particularly the latter, because a free 
treatment of it is on the whole the easiest way to 
produce a sensation in the common mind; though 
perhaps the paradoxes of Mandeville and Godwin 
respecting politics and morals excited, in their day, 
as much admiration in some quarters as those of 
Bolingbroke respecting the Christian faith. Such 
opponents create an impression adverse to our reli- 


LORD BOLINGBROKE. 209 


gion, not so much by what they argue or develope, 
as by what they hint. Were their hint reduced 
to the form of an argument, it would often be seen 
to be divested of its piquancy and force in the 
process. ‘Their very distrust, however rash, ill- 
considered, and baseless, is apt to be itself taken 
for an argument. The reasoning of their blind 
admirers is, that an opinion approved by such supe- 
rior intellects, especially when independently adopt- 
ed in opposition to prevailing sentiment, may be 
presumed to be entertained for valid cause. And 
what is true on a large scale of the anti-religious 
influence of brilliant writers, who indulge them- 
selves in such a style of thought, every one may have 
observed to be frequently true, within a more limit- 
ed sphere, of men whose reputation in a neighbour- 
hood, as statesmen, for instance, as scholars, as per- 
sons of genius and wit, commands for them a defer- 
ential hearing, to which they are no wise entitled 
when they dogmatize with equal confidence and 
feebleness on the subject of religion; a subject 
which they have not studied, and therefore one, 
upon which, with all their gifts, the judgment 
of a common mind, which has been at the pains 
to possess itself of the facts and to observe their 
bearings, is of incomparably more account than 
theirs. 

I am in my next Lecture to speak of a writer 
of an entirely different class, who has relied on 
one point, and urged it with learned illustration 


Vot. IT. 27 


210 OBJECTIONS OF LORD BOLINGBROKE. 


and logical skill; namely, Anthony Collins, au- 
thor of the ‘ Discourse of the Grounds and Rea- 
sons of the Christian Religion,” a work which 
was brought anew to notice among ourselves 
thirty years ago, by reason of the large use made 
of it in the publication of our countryman, Mr. 


English. 


LECTURE XVIIT-: 


OBJECTIONS OF ANTHONY COLLINS. 


THE writer, whose argument I am to treat this 
evening, revived and amplified an objection, which 
I formerly mentioned as having been urged by some 
of the ancient opponents of the faith.* Anthony 
Collins was bred to the law ; but, being independent 
in his circumstances, indulged his tastes in devoting 
himself to literary and philanthropic pursuits. A 
pupil and friend of Locke, he did not develope his 
infidel tendencies till long after the death of that 
excellent philosopher. He was a man of estimable 
qualities, and a well-furnished and skilful disputant ; 
nor is there much to find fault with in the manner 
of his controversial works, except that half-pretence 
of attachment to Christianity, — not intended to 
deceive (for the veil was purposely made too thin) 
but still undignified and unbecoming, — which was 


* See above, pp. 15, 52, 94. 


De OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


a poor fashion of the infidel writers of his time. 
Among his works was “A Vindication of the Di- 
vine Attributes,” and ‘A Philosophical Inquiry 
concerning Human Liberty,” which was answered 
by Dr. Samuel Clarke. In 1713, he published his 
‘¢ Discourse of Free Thinking,” a defence of free- 
dom of speculation upon religious subjects. In its 
tone and style of illustration, this work indicated suf- 
ficiently, the purpose for which the writer meant 
to use the freedom which he rightfully vindicated ; 
and particularly it laid stress, to the intended preju- 
dice of the Christian Scriptures, on those verbal 
differences of the different copies, then recently 
brought to light by Dr. Mill, which, on their first 
discovery, were thought to throw a degree of un- 
certainty on the records, but which, as I formerly 
took occasion to show, had, on further observation, 
contributed so admirably to the opposite result.* 

But the argument, which has made Collins con- 
spicuous among the assailants of the faith, 1s con- 
tained in his work, published in 1724, entitled “A 
Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the 
Christian Religion,” and in another, published 
three years afterwards, in reply to the assailants 
of this, and in particular to Bishop Chandler, 
entitled “The Scheme of Literal Prophecy con- 
sidered.” 

The argument of these books, briefly stated, was 
as follows, and it was learnedly and ably, though of 


* See Vol. I. p. 167. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. FNS 


course, not being persuaded by it, I conceive, not 
cogently, urged. 

Jesus of Nazareth asserted for himself, and his 
disciples asserted for him, that he was the Messiah 
predicted in the Old Testament. If he was not 
that, his claim being such, he was not a supernat- 
ural divine messenger in any sense. And how did 
they undertake to prove that the character of Jewish 
Messiah belonged to him? ‘The evidence, to which 
they appealed, was that of descriptions of the 
Messiah in the Old ‘Testament. They produced 
portions of the ancient prophecies, and said, There 
is the prediction, and here is the fulfilment. That 
which was foretold, has now come to pass. The 
correspondence between the anciently written word 
and the now existing reality is so complete, as 
to prove the supernatural character of the event. 
Had the correspondence been so complete, says 
Collins, the evidence would have been as satisfac- 
tory as it was alleged to be. But in fact it was 
not so; and, not being so, it leaves the whole argu- 
ment inconclusive. 

Nor does it merely invalidate that argument, but 
it at the same time precludes every other; because 
on that specifically, and on no other, the claim 
of Christianity was rested. St. Matthew, for in- 
stance, in connexion with his account of the cir- 
cumstances of the birth of Jesus, said, that “all 
this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘ A virgin 
shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call 


214, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


his name Immanuel.’ Matthew intended to say 
that Jesus was to be received as God’s Immanuel, 
because of the circumstances of his birth being the 
same as it had been declared that they would be, by 
the prophet Isaiah, six hundred years before. But, 
in fact Isaiah did not speak of Jesus at all, but of 
an infant born in the reign of his own contemporary 
Ahaz. Again; Matthew spoke of the residence 
of Jesus with his parents in Egypt, as being a ful- 
filment of the declaration of Hosea concerning what 
should befall him, when he represents God as saying, 
“Out of Egypt have I called my son.” But in 
fact, Hosea did not use those words as a prediction 
concerning Jesus, or as a prediction of any kind. 
He was referring not to a foreseen fact of eight cen- 
turies after his time, but to an historical fact of six 
centuries before it, the emigration of the Jews from 
Egypt under Moses; “When Israel was a child, 
then I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt.” 

This is no evidence for Christianity; and yet 
it is such evidence as its (so-called) inspired cham- 
pions produce. If they were what they professed 
to be, supernaturally empowered teachers of a 
supernaturally revealed religion, they knew what 
was the proper evidence on which to assert its 
claim. But, in fact, what they have produced is 
worthless, and shows them to have been in error ; 
and not only therefore can we not in reason yield 
to the evidence they have offered, but, since their 
very offer of it so convicts them, we are also pre- 


ANTHONY COLLINS. Q15 


cluded from attending to any other, whether of 
miracles or any thing else. 

Such is a summary of the argument, with suffi- 
cient illustration, I trust, to render it intelligible. 
Of the defences made against it, I will mention, 
first, a very peculiar one set up by one of the most 
accomplished and excellent of Collin’s contempo- 
raries. William Whiston, the associate, and af- 
terwards the successor, of Sir Isaac Newton as 
mathematical professor at Cambridge, and as learn- 
ed in divinity as in exact science, replied to Collins 
in his treatises entitled ‘The Literal Accomplish- 
ment of the Scripture Prophecies,” and, “A Sup- 
plement to the Literal Accomplishment of the 
Scripture Prophecies.” He assented to both as- 
sertions of Collins; namely, first, that the New 
Testament writers had applied the prophetical pas- 
sages of the Old Testament in question, to the 
proof of Christianity; while, secondly, im point 
of fact, those passages, as they now stand, are 
inapplicable. But he assumed the singular posi- 
tion, that the Old Testament had, in those passages, 
been corrupted by the Jews since the Apostles’ 
times, for the very purpose of invalidating their 
argument; that, as those passages originally stood 
in the Hebrew Bible, and as they stood at the period 
when the Apostles quoted them, they were exact 
descriptions of Jesus, his religion, and his times, 
and received in him their literal fulfilment ; and 
that it was only by the perfidious labor of the 
Jews, in the second century, in vitiating the records, 


216 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


that this correspondence has been made to vanish. 
And in an “ Essay towards Restoring the True 
texts of the Old Testament,” he proceeded to em- 
ploy much learned labor on the recovery of the 
original readings, so as to cause the lost correspon- 
dence to re-appear. 

This was but the bold error of an able and 
thoroughly sincere man, at a period when the 
studies concerned with the literary history of the 
Bible had been but little cultivated. Had Whiston 
lived somewhat later, he would have seen, that, to 
name no other improbabilities in the supposition of 
the accomplishment of such an extraordinary plot 
(of whose existence, too, of course there is no histori- 
cal evidence), it is inconsistent with what is known 
of the circulation of the Old Testament, both in the 
original and in the Greek translation, among the ear- 
ly Christians; and inconsistent too with the unques- 
tionable facts of the case, as they appear in quota- 
tions from the Jewish Scriptures in works of the 
long line of Christian fathers. But there is no 
reason why my audience should be detained with 
a discussion of the system of Whiston, which chiefly 
attracted attention at first as an ingenious and erudite 
paradox, and has long since sunk out of notice. 
Its chief effect was, the unhappy one of giving the 
appearance of a triumph to his more wary oppo- 
nent. It was natural that Christianity should be 
exposed to suspicion, when one of its eminent 
champions felt compelled, in its defence, to have 
recourse to such wild and unsustained conjecture. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. QF 


The reasoning of Collins then, I repeat, was to 
this effect ; The first preachers of Christianity urged 
in its behalf certain arguments drawn from parts of 
the Old ‘Testament, which arguments, on turning to 
the Old Testament, are seen to be groundless ; 
the religion, therefore, is undeserving of credit. 
And Whiston replied to him, by saying, they did 
indeed use such arguments, and arguments which 
would have been unsatisfactory and indefensible, 
had the Old ‘Testament, in respect to the passages 
referred to, been the same in their day as it is in 
ours. But such was not the case. It has been 
corrupted since ; and, upon the basis on which their 
arguments were made, those arguments were good 
and cogent. Other opponents of Collins, among 
whom Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Litch- 
field, was conspicuous, took different ground. It 
was substantially the same, which, with differ- 
ent modifications by different writers, has been 
commonly maintained to our day, and among others 
by Mr. Edward Everett in his “* Defence of Chris- 
tianity,” and by the authors of other strictures upon 
the work of Mr. George English, entitled, “The 
Grounds of Christianity examined by comparing 
the New Testament with the Old.” 

These writers, while, some to a greater, some 
to a less extent, they have been inclined to regard 
specified quotations in the New Testament from 
the Old, as having been introduced in the way of 
mere rhetorical accommodation, and not in the way 


of proof, have, as to the more important passages, 
Vor. II. 98 


218 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


agreed with Collins, that they were used by the 
New Testament writers for proof, as well as (in 
opposition to Whiston) that their original reading, 
and the reading possessed by the New ‘Testament 
writers was the same as that which the text of the 
Old Testament now exhibits to our view. But 
they have asserted, contrary to Collins, that the 
proof thus adduced was good proof; and their 
argument to this effect has, of course, consisted in 
a criticism upon the several passages, designed to 
show that their real, original sense was the same in 
which the New ‘Testament writers understood and 
applied them. 

This they have aimed to show, some in one way 
of interpretation, some in another. Some have 
held that those Old ‘Testament passages, understood 
to be appealed to in the New ‘Testament as super- 
natural predictions of Jesus, really had, in the origi- 
nal design of their authors, that sense, and that 
sense alone, notwithstanding the contrary appear- 
ance presented by the contexts in which they 
severally stand. ‘This opinion may be considered 
the prevailing one among this class of expositors at 
the present day, and reckons among its defenders 
in this country, our learned neighbour, Professor 
Stuart of Andover. Others have experienced 
greater difficulty in ascribing this meaning to the 
passages in question, as their primitive purport ; 
and have accordingly resorted to the theory of what 
is called a double sense, which has had the patron- 
age of distinguished names, ever since the question 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 219 


has been moved, and has, on the whole, been de- 
cidedly the favorite scheme. ‘That is to say; a 
critic reads the passage, in which Isaiah represents 
himself as having said to Ahaz, ‘A virgin shall be- 
come a mother,” * and so on, and understands it 
as relating to the birth of a child within the period 
of that monarch’s reign. But, turning to Matthew’s 
Gospel, | he understands that evangelist to declare 
the allusion to have been to the birth of Jesus, 
several centuries afterwards. Accordingly, adopting 
both interpretations, and not understanding either 
to be set aside by the other, he reconciles them by 
means of the hypothesis, that Isaiah, in the primary 
sense of his words, referred to an event of the time 
of Ahaz; but that, in a secondary sense, he de- 
signed them to foreshadow the more important 
event of a distant future time. This is the theory 
of double senses in prophecy. I shall revert to it, 
after briefly stating another. 

Collins said, The early teachers of Christianity 
produced futile arguments in its defence, and ac- 
cordingly they propagated, and have bequeathed it 
to us, destitute of any good defence. Whiston re- 
plied, No; those arguments would have been futile 
if they were what they now appear to us; but they 
only appear so, because the Old Testament docu- 
ments, which furnished their basis, have since that 
time been falsified. Bishop Chandler and others, 
said, No; the arguments, as they stand, are good 


* Issey 14. t Mat. i, 22, 23. 


220 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


ones; the prophecies referred to originally meant, 
in a primary, or else in a secondary sense, what the 
New Testament writers understood them to mean, 
when they produced them as proof. A different view, 
still, has recently been taken, and has the support 
of Christian scholars of our own vicinity, whose 
authority on such a question may be safely said to 
claim as much deference as that of any living 
writers ; particularly it has been maintained by the 
learned translator of the poetical books of the Old 
‘Testament, now Professor of Biblical Literature in 
our University. 
Their account of the facts, is this; The New 
Testament writers did sometimes interpret the Old 
Testament erroneously. For instance, Matthew 
did suppose the words addressed by Isaiah to 
Ahaz, to constitute a prophecy pointing to, and 
fulfilled in, Jesus of Nazareth. And he was in an 
error in that supposition. ‘The words really had 
no such meaning. But what then? Nothing 
follows, except the conclusion that Matthew was 
not an infallible interpreter of Old Testament 
scripture. But this in no degree affects the 
validity of his testimony to other facts, which 
assure us that Jesus was “a teacher sent from 
God, because no man could do such works as he 
did, except God were with him.” Matthew could 
testify to facts, of which his senses took cogni- 
zance, without beimg an infallible interpreter of 
language ; and those facts are all that we want to 
know, in order to be satisfied of the divine authority 


ANTHONY COLLINS. yond | 


of his master. No one supposes, that, because the 
apostles were inspired, they were omniscient ; and 
instances of their imperfect knowledge, both before 
and after their master’s departure, have been placed 
on record by themselves. We regard their occa- 
sional erroneous interpretations of the Old Testa- 
ment, as constituting one instance of their partial 
knowledge ; and if, in the case in question, they 
honestly produced as evidence something which in 
reality was not such, this does not weaken, for 
those whom they addressed, the force of other evi- 
dence, in respect to the reality of which it was not 
in the nature of things possible that they should be 
liable to any mistake. 

While 1 look at this last theory with all the 
respect due to the eminent quarters whence it 
derives support, I am compelled to say that it does 
not satisfy my mind. Persuaded, with other Chris- 
tians, that the apostles, after their master’s depar- 
ture, were supernaturally endowed with all the 
knowledge concerning his religion, necessary to 
qualify them for their work of spreading it, I can- 
not but regard it as in a high degree improbable, 
that they were left in error upon so important a 
point, as that of the nature of the evidence, on 
which it belonged to them to urge its claims. Un- 
questionably, with the well-authenticated miracu- 
lous history of Christianity on the one side, and 
nothing on the other, but this fact, —if it were a 
fact, —of an erroneous opinion concerning one 
feature of its evidence on the part of its primitive 


yd OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


teachers, I could not, as a reasonable man, but 
yield credence to its claim of divinity, and own 
that the difficulty was so far disposed of, by the 
considerations just produced, as to have no right to 
stand in the way of a satisfied belief on the main 
question.* But, before I resort to this expedient, 
which I cannot regard with favorable presumptions, 
I would fain know whether any such expedient is 
called for. Is there any certain instance of a writer 


*That is, I should regard this instance, if I saw it to exist, of misappre- 
hension on the part of the apostles, in the same light in which Grotius and 
others have viewed their supposed erroneous expectation of a speedy per- 
sonal re-appearance of Christ, and catastrophe of human things. If they 
entertained that expectation, of course they were in error; an error, how- 
ever, which, in my opinion, could not be affirmed to invalidate their claim 
to a divine commission. But I cannot allow that there is proof of their 
having entertained the expectation. When Paul says, for instance, (1 
Thess. iv. 17) “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up 
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,” I under- 
stand him to be employing the very common form of language, by which 
one belonging to any community of persons, civil, religious, or the like, 
identifies himself with it in the use of the pronoun of the first person, 
while he speaks of things done, or to be done, by that community, or some 
portion of it, though, individually, he had, or is to have, no share in doing 
them. Thus we North Americans of the present time may say, We 
drove out the Indians, and took possession of their country, or We shall be 
a numerous people, a century hence. For scriptural examples of this use, 
see Judges ii. 1; Psalm lxvi. 6; Hosea xii. 4. And for proof that Paul 
did not, in point of fact, labor under the mistake attributed to him, see 
2 Cor iv. 14, v.. 6,8; Phik 4, 225 ii. '10, 11; 2 Tim. iv. 6. The text, 
Phil. iv. 5,6, is nothing to the purpose. The connexion is, “ The Lord 
is at hand,’”—a watchful providence is always near; therefore, “be 
anxious about nothing,” &c. 

The common admission, by scriptural expositors, of mistake, in this 
instance, on the part of the writers of the New Testament, is, in my view, 
altogether uncalled for by the facts of the case. Dr. Paley (View of the 
Evidences of Christianity, Part III. chap. 2,) gives, in a few words, a 
good vindication of the supposed fact. But I cannot allow that it admits 
of being reasoned from, since I cannot allow it to be a fact. And so, pre- 
cisely, I view the question treated above. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 299) 


of the New Testament having referred to a passage 
in the Old, as containing evidence in the way of 
supernatural prediction, when it does not appear in 
fact to bear that character F 

If the criticisms upon such passages, of the pre- 
vailing school of Christian expositors, are correct, 
then there is no such instance. ‘The New ‘Testa- 
ment writers, when they have used such language 
as, ‘All this was done, that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by the prophet,” and so on, 
have intended to produce such an argument; but 
they have in every instance reasoned legitimately, 
from a correct apprehension of the fact, and with 
just inference in its application. 

I will not say that such critics have not succeeded 
in their aim. Whoever thinks they have done so, 
will of course consider the objection to Christianity, 
which we are now considering, perfectly disposed 
of. But for myself, | must own that they have not 
succeeded to my satisfaction. In respect to the 
texts which have occasioned this discussion, the 
expositions of those interpreters who have labored 
to fix on them, as the single original sense, that 
sense in which they are understood to be produced 
as proof by the writers of the New Testament, 
appear to me to be extremely violent; while the 
theory of a double sense, less esteemed now than 
formerly in any quarter, appears to me to be justly 
liable to the charge of violating all the principles of 
language, and of being in fact the theory of no defi- 
nite sense whatever. In my view, the true solution 


DOD A, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


of the question is different from any of those I have 
described. 

I conceive that the opponents of Collins erred, 
in contradicting the latter assertion, of which his 
argument is composed, when they should have 
contradicted the former. He asserted, first, that 
the New ‘Testament writers had undertaken to 
prove the divinity of their religion by references to 
passages of the Old Testament which he specified, 
and which he asserted, secondly, to be unsuitable 
to that use. His opponents assented to the former 
statement, and denied the latter. ‘They maintain- 
ed that those passages were suitable to that use. 
They should have owned, I think, that they were 
not suitable to that use, and should have denied, 
that, in point of fact, they had been applied to it. 
This I take to be the true state of the case. ‘The 
difficulty, made so much of, | hold to be merely an 
imaginary one. The passages which the evangelists 
are blamed on the one hand, and defended on the 
other, for having used as arguments, if I read them 
correctly, they did not use as arguments at all. 

To explain the case, as I understand it, a few 
preliminary observations are necessary. It is an 
approved and familiar rhetorical device, to enrich a 
composition with applications, more or less formal, 
of language of some admired author. It gives a 
vivacity to style; at all events, it is a natural im- 
pulse, as every one knows, of the mind which, 
while it composes, remembers some form of words, 
applicable really or fancifully to the subject in hand. 


~ 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 295 


One of the editors of Homer asserts, that there is 
scarcely a line of that poet, which has not been 
thus repeated in a quotation by some ancient.* 

If the Jews were not exempt, when they wrote, 
from this law of the mind, (as who can tell why 
they should be?) from what book should they 
quote? From what book but the Old Testament ? 
The Old Testament was their national library. It 
contained their national literature ; and it was more 
to them than Homer was to the Greeks, for it con- 
tained their national religion too. Its language was 
so familiar to their memories, that it would perpet- 
ually present itself unbidden, as often as any thing 
occurred which it would fitly describe ; and it was 
not only, for their readers, an always ready, but a 
dignified, a sacred, storehouse of agreeable and 
exciting allusions. How natural to adorn a narra- 
tive or description by the remark, This resembles 
what we read of in such or such a place in Old Tes- 
tament history ; or, ‘This might be well described by 
the language used on a different occasion by this or 
that ancient prophet. 

But it will be said, The form of expression, intro- 
ducing a quotation in the passages which occasion 
this inquiry, 1s very strong; so strong, as not to 
seem suitable to precede a mere ornament of speech. 
As I wish to give this argument its fullest force, I 
will treat it in reference to the strongest form of 
language which is any where used. “ All this was 


* Daniel Heinsius. See Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testa- 
ment. Part I. chap. 5. § 1. (Vol. I. p. 202.) 
Vou. Il. 29 


226 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


done,” says Matthew, in relation to the circum- 
stances of the Saviour’s birth, ‘that it might be ful- 
filled,”’? and so on. 

The first question here of course would arise on 
the sense of the word fulfil. Does it necessarily 
intimate the accomplishment of a supernatural pre- 
diction, so as to show, that, agreeably to what is 
commonly supposed, it was this which Matthew 
had in view? I answer, By no means; and, if | 
were at liberty here to use that kind of argument, 
I should proceed to show that it does not, by ob- 
servations on the meaning and comprehensiveness 
of the Greek word here translated fu/fl. In such 
connexions it simply means, to verify, to make 
good ; as we say, ‘“ In such an occurrence the saying 
was made good,” not intending to declare that the 
saying foretold the occurrence, but simply convey- 
ing the same sense in a different phraseology, as is 
expressed, where persons are spoken of, in whom 
was fulfilled the old proverb, that the swine, when 
washed, have returned to their wallowing in the 
mire.* It certainly was not intended there to say 
that the proverb, thus fulfilled in those persons, 
had been originally constructed as a supernatural 
prediction of their backsliding. 

But, “ All this was done, that it might be ful- 
filled;” must not this word that, and the whole 
construction of the sentence, be understood to de- 
clare, that the event was brought about on set pur- 
pose, that so it should answer to the prophetically 


Oe Per, Mi aoe 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 927 


uttered words? J will not, in reply to this ques- 
tion, lead my audience through any philological 
technics, relating to the distinction between ‘the 
causative that,” and “the eventual that,” but ask 
them to try it by a few simple examples.* If, in 
mourning for my ship-wrecked friend, I say, ‘ He 
only went upon the sea to perish,” or, ‘ He trusted to 
the ocean only that it might overwhelm him,” would 
any one so slavishly interpret the words as to under- 
derstand me to mean that such was his purpose in 
going on the sea; or not rather as expressing, in an 
animated manner, that such had been the sad event? 

Or, to take scriptural examples, — for these are 
equally at hand, and might be produced in an in- 
definite number, — “ Against thee, thee only have 
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that 
thou mightest be justified when thou speakest ;” T 
does any reader understand the Psalmist as saying 
that he sinned for the purpose of justifying God, or 
simply that such was the result of his sin?“ ‘They 
prophesy a lie in my name, that | might drive you 
out, and that ye might perish; ” { does this mean, 
that the false prophets had thus offended for the 
very end of causing the expulsion of their nation, 
and their own with the rest? ‘ Who did sin, this 
man, or his parents, that he might be born blind” § 
(as the literal translation is); was the question in- 
tended to be asked, whether the unnatural parents 


* The subject is constantly treated in the philological works. See, for 
instance, Glass, Philologia Sacra, Lib. iii. tract'7. canon 19. 
t Psalm, li. 4, t Jeremiah, xxvii. 10. § John, ix. 2. 


228 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY 


had sinned with a view to bringing this calamity 
on their unborn son ? 

Again; such forms of reference to their ancient 
scriptures were, in poimt of fact, undoubtedly in 
use among the Jews, when they intended to inti- 
mate nothing of the nature of accomplishment of 
supernatural prediction. ‘The Talmuds, collections 
of their ancient comments, which I had formerly 
occasion to describe,* triflmg and absurd as are 
most of their contents, and utterly worthless in 
themselves considered, are our best storehouse of 
materials for acquaintance with ancient Jewish 
forms of speech, and often throw important light 
upon New ‘Testament phraseology ; for which pur- 
pose collections have been made from them by 
Lightfoot and Schéttgen, and other Christian scho- 
lars. As to the purport of such phraseology as 
that now before us, we read, for example, as fol- 
lows, in a passage discussing the question how a 
person who had been guilty of a ritual omission 
ought to make up his fault. “ Rabbi Eliezer said, 
‘ He who does not eat on the night of the first day 
of the feast, must do it on the night of the last 
day.’ But the wise men say that there is no com- 
pensation for the thing. Of [or, concerning] this it is 
said, ‘'That which is crooked cannot be made strait, 
nor that which is wanting be numbered.’ t Here 
a quotation from the book of Ecclesiastes { is pre- 
sented as applicable to the case in hand. But cer- 


* See Vol. I. p. 313. t Mischna Surenhusii, Tom. II. p. 266. 
t Eccles. i. 15. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 229 


tainly the Jewish casuist did not mean to affirm, that 
the words he cites were originally written as a solu- 
tion of the question which he was now discussing. 

To quote further from the same collection ; 
‘¢ What shall I do with thee,” said Simeon, ‘‘ who 
dost delight thyself before the face of God?..... 
Thou art like a son that delights himself before his 
fathersyers<: .00t of [concerning] thee the Scripture 
saith, ‘Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, 
and she that bare thee shall rejoice.’” * ‘The words 
here quoted with the introduction, of thee the Scrip- 
ture saith, are from the book of Proverbs,t where no 
one will pretend that the insignificant person ad- 
dressed in this Talmudical passage was originally 
had in view, or that he was supposed to have been 
originally had in view, by the person who many 
centuries after applied it to him. Again; “ When 
Rabbi Abun came in before the King, he turned his 
neck. ‘They came, seeking to kill him; but they saw 
two sparks of fire streaming from his neck, and let 
him go, to fulfil that which is said,t * All people of 
the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of 
the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee.’” § We 
have nothing to do with the fable; but who will 
attribute to its author such an imagination, as that 
the scriptural words, which he represents as being 
fulfilled in the event related by him, were originally 
written with reference to that event? Such instances 


* Mischna Surenhus, Tom. II. p. 375. t Prog xxi, 25: 

t Deut. xxviii. 10. 

§ Talmud HMierosolymitan. Berachoth, cap. 4, as quoted by Schaaf, 
Opus Arameum, Selecta Dialecti Talmud. pp. 372, 373. 


230 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


prove a Jewish use of speech, similar to that which is 
the subject of our present inquiry. But, if such was 
an authorized Jewish phraseology in the sense ex- 
plained, then it was one to which the New Testa- 
ment writers, as Jews, were accustomed. Certainly 
their forms of language are to be interpreted agree- 
ably to the established usages of their own nation. 

Were there opportunity to pursue the argument, 
abundant illustration might be presented of the 
view which I take of the main question. If that view 
is correct, the New Testament writers will be seen 
to be in no degree liable to the charge which has 
been brought against them, of misconceptions of the 
sense of the Old, in such quotations as I have par- 
ticularly dwelt upon. Matthew then is to be un- 
derstood, after relating the circumstances of his 
Master’s nativity, to have remarked, as was very 
natural for him to do, that the event fulfilled, — 
that is, filled out, conformed to,—the tenor of 
those well-known glowing words of the ancient 
prophet, when he was promising to his afflicted 
sovereign a speedy temporal deliverance for his 
nation.* So when the same evangelist refers to the 
words of the prophet Hosea, where he says, ‘‘ When 
Israel was a child, then I loved him, and | called 
my son out of Egypt,” t and applies them to the re- 
turn of Jesus from that country, in the remark, that 
“this fulfilled what was spoken of the Lord by the 
prophet, ‘ Out of Egypt I have called my son ;’” ¢ 
and again, when, having related that Jesus addressed 


* Mat. i. :22;°23. t Hos. xi. 1. t Mat. i. 15. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 98% 


the multitude in parables, he adds, that this was 
done, “ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
by the prophet, saying, ‘I will open my mouth in 
parables,’ ” *— words which it seems impossible to 
doubt that the Psalmist used concerning himself, t 
or to suppose that St. Matthew understood him to 
use in any other sense ; — on these, and other like 
occasions, we shall understand this evangelist and 
his associates not to have had in view the assertion 
of a supernatural prediction fulfilled, but merely the 
passing suggestion of analogies between an event, 
which they were recording, and another which the 
language used in describing it brought to their 
minds. 

The method of explanation, which I have now 
been developing, is called by the name of the ac- 
commodation scheme ; and my own view differs from 
that of others, who have adopted it, only in giving 
it a wider application. ‘The remarks which have 
now been made answer to a large class of texts ; 
and, having particularly illustrated them in reference 
to one text which is oftenest specified in this con- 
nexion, I will do the same as to another, of equal 
interest, which may perhaps be called the most 
prominent instance of those, in which the stress 
does not lie on the use of that particular form of 
quotation which has now been expounded. 

On the day of the first Pentecost after their Lord’s 
ascension, the Apostles were qualified for their 
work by being empowered to address the strangers 


* Mat. xiii. 35. t Psalm, |xxviii. 2. 


239 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


at Jerusalem in the languages of their respective 
countries. In reply to the astonishment of some 
of the bystanders, and the mockery of others, at 
this amazing phenomenon, Peter is related to have 
stood up with the eleven, and addressed the multi- 
tude in such a manner, that “ numbers gladly re- 
ceived his word and were baptized, and the same 
day there were added unto the disciples’ company 
about three thousand souls.”* The truth to which 
these thousands were converted, was that which he 
announced in saying, ‘“ Let all the house of Israel 
know assuredly, that God hath made that same 
Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and 
Christ.” + How did they become satisfied of the 
truth of that declaration? How did Peter seek 
and succeed to persuade them, on this first essay to 
fulfil the Master’s parting command to “ go and 
teach all nations ? ” 

He persuaded them, some will answer, by the 
force of certain prophecies which he produced in 
that discourse ; one at some length from Joel, and 
two from the Psalms. But, the opponent will say, 
If the first great company of converts were per- 
suaded by that evidence, they were persuaded by 
evidence which was altogether insufficient ; and, if 
this was what Peter had to maintain his claim with, 
his claim ought not to have been acknowledged by 
reasonable men. For, if ancient prediction fulfilled 
is to be owned for satisfactory proof, it must clearly 
be because the correspondence between the predic- 


* Acts, ii. Al. t Ibid. ii. 36. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. OS 


tion and its accomplishment is so manifestly circum- 
stantial and exact, as to forbid any other explana- 
tion except that of a supernatural divine interfer- 
ence. But how was it in the present instance ? 
Look at the words of Joel, which composed Peter’s 
first and longest quotation in this discourse. What 
was their tenor ? 

The language is, ‘It shall come to pass in the 
last days,’ saith God, ‘I will pour out of my spirit 
upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters 
shall prophesy; and your young men shall see 
visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and 
on my servants and on my handmaidens [ will pour 
out in those days of my spirit, and they shall 
prophesy; and I will show wonders in heaven 
above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and 
fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned 
into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that 
great and notable day of the Lord come.’” * This 
was the prediction, if any, which was first brought 
to the notice of the multitude, to satisfy them of 
the character of him whom Peter declared to be a 
man sent and approved of God. But where was 
that manifestly circumstantial and exact accomplish- 
ment of the prediction, which was to convert it into 
present proof of a supernatural divine interposition ? 
Why could not those addressed have replied, “ We 
see no such accomplishment. We see no sun 
turned into darkness, nor moon into blood. We 
see no wonders in heaven above, no blood, nor fire, 


* Joel, ii. 28 —32; Acts, ii. 16 —21. 
Vox. II. 30 


Q34, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


nor vapor of smoke; and though young men may 
have seen visions, and old men have dreamed 
dreams, as these are facts not apparent to us, they 
cannot be taken by us as the basis of any further 
conviction.” 

I see not how, upon that understanding of the 
passage which I suppose is common, a sufficient 
answer could be made to an objection of this kind. 
But I take it to be only through a misinterpretation 
of Peter’s words, that the validity of his reasoning 
is subjected to so serious a question. As | under- 
stand him, he does not rest the claims of his Mas- 
ter’s religion on the evidence of a prediction, of so 
vague a character, fulfilled, —a prediction, which, 
however real, was certainly not suited, in its detail 
of circumstances, to the present purpose, that of 
conciliating unbelief; but he rests its claims on the 
proper evidence of the miraculous works wrought 
in its behalf. He introduces the subject, it is true, 
by saying, not simply, “ We are not beside ourselves, 
as you injuriously charge us with being; we are 
heralds of the Messiah’s times; the long expected 
Christ is come.” He does not introduce the grand 
annunciation, which he was presently to prove, in 
such simple terms; but, in a style more suitable to 
the sublime excitement of the occasion, he says, 
“That which you see is not what you suppose it, 
the officious frenzy of intemperate men; but the 
time has come at length, which all the fathers 
looked for with so confident and intense a longing ; 
the time which Joel described, with the lavish rich- 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 235 


ness of poetical imagery, due to the enthusiasm 
with which the great subject filled his soul.” 

This was Peter’s natural and becoming form of 
annunciation of the truth, that Jesus of Nazareth 
was the long expected Messiah. But, when he 
presently proceeded to the proof of the truth so 
announced, he then spoke in a different strain. 
Then he appealed to the miracles of Jesus, and par- 
ticularly to that great and last miracle of the resur- 
rection, which his followers, who had had ocular 
evidence of it, were now addressing themselves to 
publish to the world. “Ye men of Israel,” he 
says, ‘“‘ hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
approved of God among you by miracles and won- 
ders and signs, which God did by him in the midst 
of you, as ye yourselves also know, him, being de- 
livered by the determinate counsel and foreknowl- 
edge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, 
having loosed the pains of death.” “ This Jesus hath 
God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.” * In 
the miracles done by God through Jesus in the 
midst of them, as they, or part of them, also knew, 
though, in their tardy hesitating sluggishness of soul, 
they had not yielded to the conviction which that 
sublime testimonial carried with it, and, among 
those miracles, in the resurrection of Jesus, to which 
his servants were now about to publish their effec- 
tive testimony through the world, —in these, and 
in the present miracle of their own capacity, with- 


* Acts, ii. 22 — 24, 32. 


236 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


out human teaching, to speak to foreigners each in 
his native tongue, — in these miracles, thus presented 
(and enlarged upon, it is likely, as to their evidence 
and purport, in the “many other words” with 
which Peter is further said to have “testified and 
exhorted,”) consisted the proof with which three 
thousand souls were won to the faith on the memo- 
rable day of the first Pentecost. 

I could not, I think, have selected from the whole 
New Testament any other texts more directly bear- 
ing upon the argument of this evening’s Lecture, 
than the two which I have brought before your 
notice for the particular illustration of principles of 
interpretation, applicable equally to others. ‘The 
question naturally occurs at the close of the inquiry, 
How are we then to regard the not unfrequent 
references in the New Testament to the Old, in con- 
nexion with the subject of the advent and religion 
of Jesus Christ? Had the question been put to 
me, some years ago, after I had resorted to the 
common sources of information concerning it, | 
could not have given a reply satisfactory to my own 
mind; and that I could not, was an occasion to me 
of inexpressible concern. Different minds view the 
various points in the evidences differently; mine, 
since I first gave much attention to the subject, has 
never labored seriously upon any other point, than 
that of this connexion between the Old Testament 
and the New. As I speak only for myself, | may 
say, without a breach of modesty, that investiga- 
tions, patiently pursued, and, I would hope, fauly, 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 934 


and with a sincere desire to know the truth, con- 
ducted me to results which have afforded me not 
only relief, but the fullest satisfaction. ‘The meth- 
od, and part of the details, of these have been laid 
before the public in two volumes, part of a work on 
the “Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities.” ‘The 
minute criticism, necessary to exhaust the subject, 
does not admit of being introduced as part of such 
a course of Lectures as the present ; but I will state 
results, bearing upon the particular point of our 
present inquiry, though conscious, that, unaccom- 
panied as they must be with the proper explana- 
tions and defence, they may at first strike many 
minds as untenable. 

I am satisfied, then, that no instance can be es- 
tablished of misrepresentation or misapprehension, 
on the part of writers of the New ‘Testament, in 
respect to passages of the Old adduced by them in 
connexion with the character, mission, and faith of 
their Master. And I conceive that such passazes 
are comprehended under four classes. 

To the first belong those, which really were su- 
pernatural predictions, and really are referred to, as 
such. For instance, when our Lord says, that Mo- 
ses wrote of him,* 1 understand him to refer to the 
supernaturally conveyed knowledge possessed by 
Moses of his future advent and character; a knowl- 
edge naturally incident to Moses’s office as minister 
of the preparatory dispensation, and expressed by 
him, for example, in that prophecy appealed to by 


* John, v. 46, 


SB OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


Peter in an address to his countrymen, ‘A prophet 
shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of 
your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in 
all things;”* as well as in Moses’s record of the 
promise made to the first three Hebrew patriarchs, 
that in their posterity should “all the kingdoms of 
the earth be blessed.” fT 

And on this class of references, being to real 
proof texts, — supernatural predictions fulfilled, — 
I find occasion for two remarks. The first is, that 
they present no difficulty whatever in their applica- 
tion. ‘The use of them in the New Testament 
does not strike the reader as foreign to their origi- 
nal sense. On the contrary, it is the sense which 
he would naturally put upon them as they stand 
in their original connexion. Secondly, I consider 
every instance of this class of references to be to the 
Law ; the Pentateuch; the five books of the super- 
naturally endowed lawgiver Moses; and not to any 
other part of Old Testament scripture. Whether, 
for instance, the famous passage in Isaiah, descrip- 
tive of some eminent sufferer, { be in reality a proof 
text, a supernatural prediction of Jesus, or not, — 
a point which I am not now to discuss, — it is no- 
where used for that purpose by the New Testament 
writers. § Peter says, “¢ Who his own self bare our 


* Acts, iii. 22; Deut. xviii. 18. 

t Gen. xii. 3 — xviii. 18 — xxii. 18 — xxvi. 4. 

t Zs. ii. 13 — lili. 12. 

§ I do not forget the conversation of Peter with the Ethiopian officer, 
recorded in Acts, viii. 30, et seg. But itis only the prepossessions of read- 
ers, that lead them to the conclusion of Peter’s having applied to Jesus, in 
the way of a supernatural prediction, the passage there quoted from Isaiah. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. 239 


sins in his own body on the tree, by whose stripes 
we are healed ;’’* and the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, that Christ ‘‘ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many;’’ + and these are understood to be 
references to the language of Isaiah. But they are, 
at most, allusions, and not arguments in the nature 
of appeal to prophecy fulfilled. And Matthew, who 
much more exactly quotes the passage, employs it 
with a very different application. Jesus ‘“ cast out,” 
he says, “the spirits with a word, and cured all 
those who were sick, that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, when he 
said, ‘ Himself took our infirmities, and bare [the 
sense here must be, bare off; removed] our sick- 
nesses.’ ” ft 

The second class of these texts is that, of which 
I have treated at large in this Lecture, where nothing 
but a legitimate rhetorical accommodation is de- 
signed. They are taken, as from their nature they 
may well be, indifferently from all parts of the Old 
Testament collection. ‘Ye shall not break a bone 


The narrative of the interview contains no declaration of that kind. All 
that is affirmed is, that the Ethiopian was reading the passage, which, 
whether rightly or wrongly, he appears to have understood as descrip- 
tive of the expected Messiah of the Jews; and that Peter, taking up the 
subject thus introduced, ‘“ began at the same scripture, and preached unto 
him Jesus.” For myself, I think that, in the words quoted, their writer 
did design a reference to the Messiah, whom every Jew of his time 
expected ; —a reference in what sense, it would lead me here into too 
extensive a discussion to explain. But, for aught that can be safely 
inferred from the account of the interview between Peter and the Ethi- 
opian, Peter may have begun by a denial of any applicability whatever of 
those words to the Messiah. 
*'1 Peta ee. t Heb. ix. 28. t Mat. viii. 17. 


QA0 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


thereof,” was one of the directions in the law re- 
specting the Paschal Lamb;* the Jews, in com- 
memorating, in after ages, ther hasty departure 
from Egypt, were not to stop at the Paschal table 
to break the lamb’s bones, to taste the marrow. 
As the body of Jesus hung upon the cross, the sol- 
diers, for a reason given, forbore to deal with it, as 
with those of the malefactors, “that the scripture 
should be fulfilled,” John adds, «‘A bone of him 
shall not be broken.” | Jesus ‘came and dwelt in 
a city called Nazareth,” records Matthew, “that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the proph- 
ets, ‘ He shall be called a Nazarene ;’” { where no 
other text seems so likely to have been in his view, 
as that where it is said, that Samson should be, or 
be called, «a Nazarite from his birth.”§ When 
Herod slew “all the children which were in Beth- 
lehem, from two years old and under,” “then was 
fulfilled,” says Matthew, ‘that which was spoken 
by Jeremy the prophet, saying, ‘In Ramah was 
there a voice heard, Rachel weeping for her chil- 
dren.’”’ || The reference is to a passage of the 
prophecy of Jeremiah, where, on the occasion of 
the calamity of Ramah, a city of the tribe of Ben- 
jamin, Rachel, the mother of that tribe, is beauti- 
fully represented as deploring their lot.1 But the 
innocents of Bethlehem were descended from Ju- 
dah, a son of Leah; and to suppose Matthew to 


* Exodus, xii. 46. t John, xix. 36. t Matthew, ii 23. 
§ Judges, xiii. 7. || Matthew, ii. 17,18. 1 Jerem. xxxi. 15. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. QA1 


have cited the words as a prediction of their fate, is 
to lose sight of all the propriety of the allusion. 
The third class of the texts in question consists 
of those, which are produced as references to, or 
proofs of, the opinions entertained in ancient times, 
concerning the Messiah who was eventually to 
appear; and, when produced from any other part 
of the Old Testament except the Pentateuch, they 
leave it an open question, as far as their mention of 
such a personage is concerned, whether their au- 
thors possessed or not any supernatural information 
concerning him. ‘To Moses the fact that a great 
prophet was to come after him could be known 
only through a direct divine communication. There 
was no other source whence he could derive it. 
The Jews of later times, however, knew it from 
his own recorded declaration; and, for a series of 
ages, every Jew, on Moses’s authority, without any 
new inspiration of his own on the subject, confi- 
dently and joyfully recognised the fact. Sometimes 
this class of texts, indicative of the opinions of 
times between Moses and Jesus, respecting the 
coming Messiah, the nature of his office, the extent 
of his kingdom, and the spirit of his faith, are used 
by the apostles in argument with the Jews of their 
own day. But there is no instance of this kind, 
where the argument used implies an assertion, on 
the part of the New Testament writers, of super- 
natural authority possessed by the authors of the 
Old ‘Testament language which they quote. | 
The first Christians, for instance, being all of the 
Voi. II. 31 


VAD OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


Jewish stock, and full of their native prejudices, were 
discontented to think that Gentiles were to be admit- 
ted to their fraternity. James tells them, however, 
that it ought so to be, and adds, that ‘to this too 
agree the words of the prophets,” * who spoke of 
God’s building again, as every Jew was persuaded 
that he would do, ‘the tabernacle of David, which 
had fallen down, and building up the ruins thereof, 
and setting it up,” and that then “the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles 
upon whom his name was called ;”’ + and Paul pro- 
duces Hosea to the same purpose { as saying, “It 
shall come to pass, in the place where it was said to 
them, ‘Ye are not my people,’ there they shall be 
called, the sons of the living God.” § It cannot be 
inferred, that such passages (and they are numer- 
ous) ascribe to the author of the quoted text any 
supernatural authority to settle the question on 
which they are brought to bear. ‘The most that 
can be safely maintained is, that they enforce upon 
the Jews of the apostles’ times this argument ; 
Whatever may be the bigoted notions of your na- 
tion now, it 1s clear, from the use of such language, 
that they have no countenance from the illustrious 
men of the former ages; they did not think about 
the perpetual exclusion of the Gentiles, as you do. 

The remaining class of the texts in question, 
akin to that last mentioned, does not so commonly 
comprehend particular quotations, but consists 


* Acts, xv. 15, et seq. t Amos, ix. 11, 12. 
t Romans, ix. 26. § Hosea, ii. 23. 


ANTHONY COLLINS. DAS 


rather of references to the general tenor of the Old 
Testament, showing to the Jews, that, on their own 
principles of interpretation, without arguing the 
question whether those principles were correct or 
not, Old ‘Testament scripture did not supply them 
with those objections to the faith of Jesus which 
they imagined. This class of texts is large, and 
differs from that just now described in this; that the 
former adduce from the Old Testament a positive 
argument, while these contain only a denial that the 
Old Testament, even in Jewish interpretation, pre- 
sents any argument, such as was supposed, on the 
other side ;—in short, a denial that certain preju- 
dices of the Jews against Christianity, founded on a 
particular view of their own respecting their sacred 
writings, had any good foundation, even supposing 
that view to be in the main correct. 

For instance, when St. Paul says that Christ 
‘died and was buried, and rose again the third 
day according to the scriptures,” —* that is, of 
course, the Old Testament scriptures, — I conceive 
his sense to have been not that Christ’s rising on 
the third day was expressly predicted in the scrip- 
tures (since that is a prediction which certainly 
is not found there ); but it was “according to the 
scriptures ” in the sense of not being in contradic- 
tion to them, as the Jews supposed it would be, 
who, looking, on the ground of their scriptural 
interpretations, for none other than a triumphant 
Messiah, regarded any assertion of the claim of a 


ae UY Te ge ee 


2QAA OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. 


Messiah, who was to die, as essentially, and in its 
first aspect, undeserving of credit. 

The perfect logical legitimacy of the four meth- 
ods of quotation and reference now specified, I take 
to be unquestionable ; and under one or another of 
the four I conceive that all the instances in the 
New Testament very naturally arrange themselves. 
If it be so, then the famous argument of Collins 
ought to be dismissed from the controversy. 

In my next Lecture I am to speak of Toland, 
Woolston, Morgan, and Chubb, whose writings 
afford an index to the state of infidel opinion in 
England, down to the middle of the last century. 


LEG@T URE kel &. 


OBJECTIONS OF TOLAND, WOOLSTON, MORGAN, AND CHUBB. 


Ir was a doctrine of an ancient philosophy, that 
time, in respect to the course of human affairs, as 
well as in respect to its natural divisions, was made 
up of a succession of cycles, so that, when one 
period was finished, another began, embracing the 
same events, recurring in the same order, as before. 
This was but a fable. And yet it does sometimes 
seem, as if there were really such cycles in the his- 
tory of opinions. Opinions are proposed, canvassed, 
refuted, abandoned. ‘They betake themselves for a 
while to obscurity. But by and by they re-appear, 
emerging afresh (so complete is the forgetfulness 
that has involved them) with all the attractions of 
novelty. Again they are the wonder of a day; 
again they are examined and rebuked; and again 
they vanish, to await perhaps some future transient 
revival. 


246 OBJECTIONS OF 


In reading the history of infidelity during the 
first half of the last century, one almost seems to be 
anticipating the relation of what has been taking 
place under our own eyes. There was an exhi- 
bition of the same dreamy imaginative devotion, 
which, aspiring after something in the way of reli- 
gion, better than what could be defined and proved, 
spurned all the solid foundations of faith, and lost 
itself in airy abstractions; the same cultivation of 
a certain sort of mystical piety, which, until it was 
quite run away with by self-conceit and the infatua- 
ting fancy of new discovery, imposed on others, as 
well as on the individual himself, with the idea, that, 
in a relinquishment and contempt of plain sense and 
ascertainable truth, the mind might still continue 
to contemplate something substantial and nourish- 
ing. ‘The very phrases, “ historical religion,” ‘the 
ministry of the letter,” * and the like, which, as 
terms of obloquy, have just now had a faint re- 
surrection among ourselves, were the watch-words 
of Woolston and Morgan a hundred years ago. 

John Toland, an Irishman by birth, was one of 
the first writers, who, in the last century, rendered 
themselves conspicuous in the controversy respect- 
ing the authority of the Christian faith. His capa- 
city for such a discussion, as it was estimated by 
his contemporaries, may be inferred, with proper 
allowances, from sketches of his character drawn 


both by friends and foes. Of the latter I find a : 


“ Woolston’s Defence of his Discourses, &c. p. 49; Morgan’s Moral 
Philosopher, Vol. I. p. 408. 


JOHN TOLAND. DAT 


specimen in a few periods from a journal of the 
day, extracted in a Memoir of his life prefixed to 
the collection of his posthumous works. “ ‘The 
misfortunes of Mr. Toland,” says this writer, ‘ are 
to be ascribed to his vanity. He affected singularity 
in all things (an easy way of being distinguished) ; 
he would reject an opinion merely because an 
eminent writer embraced it; he had a smattering 
in many languages, was a critic in none; his style 
was low, confused, and disagreeable ; he prefixed 
affected titles to his tracts, in imitation of some 
ancient philosophers, in which he loved to talk of 
himself, and that in a most complaisant manner. 
Dabbling in controversy was his delight, in which 
he was rude and positive, as well as always in the 
wrong.” * 

This is evidently from an unfriendly hand, and 
I do not quote it as authority; but that there 
was some truth in the portraiture, may be inferred 
from the corroboration it received in a letter ad- 
dressed to Locke by his respectable correspondent 
Mr. Molyneux, + who, from his attachment to reli- 
gious liberty, had befriended ‘Toland, but who found 
occasion to say of him, many years before he pro- 
fessed infidelity, «I do not think his management, 
since he came to this city, has been prudent. He 
has raised against him the clamors of all parties, 
and this not so much by his difference in opinion, 
as by his unreasonable way of discoursing, propa- 


* Collection of Pieces, &c. Vol. I. p. xc. t Ibid. p. xviii. 


QA8 OBJECTIONS OF 


gating, and maintaining it. When a tincture of 
vanity appears in the whole course of a man’s con- 
versation, it disgusts many, that may otherwise have 
a due value for his parts and learning.” 

These representations, taken together, present to 
us the idea of a combination of qualities, which, 
whenever it occurs, is very likely to prompt to a 
championship of unbelief, and at the same time to 
carry with it a sort of authority such as its real claims 
by no means justify. The mere appearance of a 
degree of talent and learning on the side of infidel 
opinions is apt to pass with unreflecting minds for 
a voucher of the truth of those opinions ; and with- 
out doubt they owe some of their triumphs to this 
cause. But, granting even such partial mental ac- 
complishments to be real, certainly they are liable 
to be found in union with a levity of mind incom- 
patible with the exercise of a serious judgment upon 
any thing, and with an impatience for notoriety, — 
a notoriety always easily won in this way, — which 
proclaims opinions, not only before they are weighed, 
but before, in a careful way of speaking, they can 
be said to be formed. 3 

Toland had attracted attention by what were 
thought his latitudinarian views as early as the close 
of the seventeenth century; but [ think there is 
no proof that the progress of his speculations had 
brought him upon infidel ground till some years 
after the publication of Lord Shaftesbury’s writings. 
He was bred a Catholic ; but, while yet a youth, 
renounced that form of faith, and attached himself 


JOHN TOLAND. QAO 


to the Presbyterian communion. Of his numerous 
writings, mostly on religious subjects, I have occa- 
sion to mention but a few, as coming within the 
scope of our present investigation. 

When twenty-five years of age, he published his 
‘‘ Christianity not Mysterious, or a Treatise show- 
ing that there is Nothing in the Gospel contrary to 
Reason, nor above it, and that no Christian Doc- 
trine can be properly called a Mystery ;” a work, 
which, considering the peculiar senses attached by 
him to his terms, is far from justifying the opinion 
of his having become an unbeliever in the superna- 
tural divine origin of Christianity. Nor do I find that 
there is any thing to prove that he had taken that 
ground earlier than the year 1720, when he printed 
his “ Pantheisticon,” which, if rightly described, 
proclaimed him as an advocate of that Pantheistical 
system of Spinoza, which, in a former treatise,* 
he had elaborately opposed. 

I say, “if rightly described,” which I presume 
that it is, from the full and circumstantial accounts 
given of its contents. But there is probably no 
copy of it in this country; it never was published ; 
and only a small edition was printed for presents to 
the author’s friends. The notion which he himself 
entertained of his merits and those of his Pantheistic 
associates, I find described as follows, in what pur- 
ports to be a careful abstract of that treatise, by a 
German writer who possessed a copy; t+ “He de- 


* Letters to Serena, p. 131, et seq. 
t Staudlin, Geschichte, &c., Th. II. s. 114. 
Vorate. 32 


250 APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 


scribes the Pantheists as the most tolerant and 
gentle beings, who persecute no man for opinion’s 
sake ; who, without regard to honor or disgrace, and 
content with their lot, strive to live agreeably to 
their own principles, and not to those of others, 
to extend their insight, to improve their hearts, to 
advance the general good, and continually to bring 
themselves nearer to perfection.” 

But that book, if it were accessible, would only 
settle for us, at first hand, the question respecting 
its author’s unbelief in the fundamental doctrine of 
all religion, and would not furnish any matter bear- 
ing specially on the argument of the Evidences of 
Christianity. In a previous work, however, he had 
(unwittingly, as he avers) furnished to others an ar- 
gument, which may here conveniently receive the 
brief attention it demands. In 1698, he published an 
edition of the works of Milton, prefixing a Life, in 
which he took occasion to engage in the controversy 
respecting the authorship of the work called ‘“ Ikon 
Basilike,” falsely, as is probable, ascribed to King 
Charles the First. He argued against its authentic- 
ity, and having, as he conceived, made out his point, 
he concluded with this remark; ‘‘When [I seri- 
ously consider how all this happened among our- 
selves, within the compass of forty years, in a time 
of great learning and politeness, ..... I cease to 
wonder how so many supposititious pieces under the 
name of Christ, his apostles, and other great per- 
sons, should be published and approved in those 
primitive times, when it was of so much importance 


JOHN TOLAND. 251 


to have them believed.” * ‘This was regarded, and 
publicly animadverted on, as an insinuation against 
the authenticity of the books of the New ‘Testament. 
In reply, he asseverated in the strongest terms that 
such was not his purpose, and I see no reason to 
doubt his sincerity in so doing. And, to show 
what was the real subject of his allusion, he pub- 
lished a Catalogue, accompanied with brief remarks, 
of apocryphal writings still extant, or known at 
some time to have been so, relating to the early 
New Testament times, and thus attracted attention 
to the points of discrimination between such books 
and the books composing what is called the Canon 
of the New Testament. f 

Thus, however free from any hostility to Chris- 
tianity his intention may have been, he raised an 
important question in its Evidences; a question, 
which speedily received a careful examination, and, as 
there is no hazard in saying, was definitively settled. 
I formerly presented the proof of the origin of those 
histories of the ministry of Jesus which we have in 
the New Testament, showing it to be such as 
places their authenticity on a solid basis. But 
now, suppose an opponent of Christianity should 
say to us, This all looks well, but it is not the whole 
of the case. Besides the writings at present includ- 
ed in the New ‘Testament canon, there were other 
writings circulated in early times, purporting to be 
works of apostles and of companions of apostles. 
Some of them are still extant entire; while of 


* Life of John Milton, p. 77. t Amyntor, p. 161, e¢ seq. 


252, APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 


others only fragments remain; and of some only 
the titles, made known to us by occasional notices 
of the fathers. Of these Toland made out a Cata- 
logue, and twenty years afterwards a collection of 
such as still survive was published in the three vol- 
umes of Professor Fabricius of Hamburg. Why are 
not these, which the Christian world rejects as not 
authoritative writings, placed upon the same footing 
as those which it receives ? 

Should any one ask us this, he would propose a 
fair question. What should we answer? We 
should answer, as the indisputable result of the 
thorough investigations upon the subject, that, 
whereas the authorship of the New Testament his- 
tories is satisfactorily traced to contemporaries and 
disciples of Jesus, no other history whatever, pur- 
porting to be written by any apostle or companion 
of apostles, is quoted, as deserving of any respect 
or confidence, by any writer now extant or known, 
belonging to the first three centuries. So strong 
a statement as this is not to be taken upon trust. 
The particulars of it may be verified by any one 
in the admirable work of Dr. Lardner, “The 
Credibility of the Gospel History” (found in most 
public libraries), as well as in other treatises. 

After the third century, the aspect of affairs among 
Christians was changed. They became numerous 
and opulent; and, desirous as they would be to pos- 
sess themselves of anything which professed to con- 
tribute to a knowledge of the establishment of their 
faith, there arose a motive to attempt to impose on 


JOHN TOLAND. 253 


credulous individuals among them by supposititious 
writings. It was under this motive, to adopt the 
very probable conjecture of Paley,*—=in order to 
make a profit by the sale, — that the spurious books, 
known to have existed as early as the fourth cen- 
tury, were produced ; and some of them appear to 
have obtained a degree of credit within a limited 
sphere, though none to any considerable extent. 

On a review of their contents, Lardner, who, 
as usual, is condensed by Paley, judiciously re- 
marks, that, so far from overthrowing the Gospel 
history, they confirm it; for “‘ they are written in 
the names of such as our authentic Scriptures say, 
were apostles or companions of apostles. ‘They 
all suppose the dignity of our Lord’s person, and a 
power of working miracles, together with a high 
degree of authority, to have been conveyed by him 
to his apostles. Every one who observes that these 
books are called Gospels or Preachings of Peter, 
Paul, Thomas, Matthias, Bartholomew, or Acts 
of Paul, Andrew, John, and other apostles, must 
suppose that the composers did not mean to dis- 
parage them. No; they had great respect for 
them, and knew that other Christians had the like. 
ROR, They therefore, who out of a regard to 
these books, or the great number of them, attempt 
to set aside or diminish the authority of the books 
of the New ‘Testament, now commonly received, 
a: go beyond the intention even of the authors 


* View of the Evidences, &c. Part I. chap. 9. § 11. 


254, OBJECTIONS OF 


fof the spurious books] themselves.” And he 
proceeds further to speak of those writings as being 
actually, when their contents are contrasted with 
those of the canonical books, no less than ‘* monu- 
ments of the care, skill and good judgment of the 
primitive Christians”, and as affording ‘all the sat- 
isfaction which can be reasonably desired, that the 
books received by them were received upon good 
ground, and that others were as justly rejected.”* 
Toland had said, in allusion to his starting the con- 
troversy, “I made no objections then, nor do I 
make any now, to invalidate or destroy, but in or- 
der to illustrate and confirm the Canon of the 
New Testament.” + Whatever hesitation there 
may be in pronouncing upon his sincerity in this 
assertion, certain it is that the event has proved to 
be no other than he professed to have contemplated. 

Thomas Woolston, a clergyman of the church of 
England, presented a still more striking exemplifi- 
cation of the principle of the nearness of religious 
mysticism to religious unbelief. A principle, I call 
it. As a fact, it is certainly sometimes manifested. 
And on a little consideration it may cease to surprise 
us; for, where the imagination is allowed to have an 
unresisted sway, there of course the understanding, 
to which the proper proofs of religion are addressed, 
is degraded from its place. I suppose there is no 
doubt, that Woolston, notwithstanding the opposite 
tenor of his writings, fancied himself devout in a 


* Recapitulation of the Second Part of the Credibility of the Gospet 
History, chap. 165. (Works, Vol. III, pp. 131, 132, 134.) 
t Mazarenus, Pref. p ix. 


THOMAS WOOLSTON. 255 


certain way, and that his reveries of something 
divine, residing in the mind of man, or else out of it 
and mystically communicating with it, passed with 
him for a sort of sublimated faith. 

His mental idiosyncrasy, inclining him to a con- 
templative, self-contrived religion, in preference to 
one of definiteness and authority, was first indicated 
in the year 1720, in a published letter upon this 
question, ‘‘ Whether the people called Quakers do 
not, the nearest of any other sect in religion, resem- 
ble the primitive Christians in principles and_prac- 
tice.” After the publications of Collins, of which I 
spoke in my last Lecture, Woolston wrote in their 
defence ; and, as Collins had argued that the pro- 
phecies commonly appealed to in support of the 
claims of the Christian faith admitted of no such use, 
except in the way of an allegorical interpretation, 
Woolston proceeded to apply the same rule to the 
evangelical record of the miracles of Jesus, which, 
understood in a literal sense, he assailed with un- 
bounded ridicule. His ‘‘ Six Discourses,” as he 
called them, on this theme, attracted attention, and 
passed through several editions. It could scarcely 
have been otherwise, even if, instead of a lively and 
accomplished mind, their author had possessed but 
a feeble and unfurnished one. ‘The simple fact of 
the extraordinary position of a clergyman, who 
scoffs at the Scriptures and abjures the Saviour, 
must needs attract to him at all times a degree of 
public curiosity and notice. 

The argument of Woolston comprises two par- 


256 ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 


ticulars ; first, that, to use his own language, “the 
literal history of many of the miracles of Jesus, as 
recorded by the evangelists, does imply absurdi- 
ties, improbabilities, and incredibilities, consequent- 
ly they, either in whole or in part, were never 
wrought, as they are commonly believed now-a- 
days, but are only related as prophetical and para- 
bolical narratives of what would be mysteriously 
and more wonderfully done by him;”* secondly, 
that this view of his is no other than a revival of 
the common one of the first ages of the church, 
as exhibited in the writings of the fathers. 

Woolston has sometimes been said to have adopt- 
ed an allegorical interpretation of the Christian his- 
tory, in consequence of his diligent study of the writ- 
ings of Origen. But I think it much more proba- 
ble, that this study was the effect, than that it was 
the cause, of the state of his own mind on the main 
subject. Had he been influenced by the example 
of Origen, he would have presented indeed some 
very fantastic expositions of the sense of Scripture ; 
but he would have proposed them very sincerely ; 
whereas it is apparent to any reader of his work, 
and was meant to be so, that, if he could refute the 
literal sense of the Gospels, he had no idea that 
Christianity could stand for an hour on the alle- 
gorical. 

As to the point of a use of allegorical interpreta- 
tion by the fathers,—a point, the bearings of 


* Discourse I, p. 4. 


THOMAS WOOLSTON, Q57 


which, if it were established as to any particular 
text under discussion, would still be matter of con- 
troversy, —the argument of Woolston lies justly 
under the reproach of a constant unfair citation 
of authorities. [I have compared a sufficient num- 
ber of them to be satisfied, that no reliance what- 
ever is to be placed even on the accuracy of 
his translations. But further; while it must be 
owned that many of the fathers, — particularly 
Clement of Alexandria, and his school, — put very 
fanciful senses upon Scripture, still nothing is more 
certain, than that, in respect to the New Testa- 
ment history, they presented them but as secon- 
dary senses, founded upon the literal, instead of 
excluding it. This single fact disposes of that part 
of the argument of Woolston, which is built on a 
reference to their authority. ‘They recognised the 
primary sense, and proposed a secondary ; whereas 
Woolston’s argument, to be good for any thing, re- 
quired him to prove that they rejected the primary, 
and substituted a secondary in its place. 

To show how he has here begged the question, 
and misrepresented the facts, I will present the quo- 
tations which he has placed in the very front of his 
treatise. ‘‘ Let us hear particularly,” says he, in 
the opening of this part of the subject, ‘ their 
opinion [the opinion of the fathers] of the actions 
and miracles of our Saviour. Origen says, that 
‘whatsoever Jesus did in the flesh, was but typical 
and symbolical of what he would do in the spirit.’ ” 
Adopting Woolston’s own translation, this sentence 

Vor. II. 33 


258 ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, 


of Origen would not suit his purpose, for when it is 
said, ‘‘ whatsoever Jesus did in the flesh was but 
typical,” and so on, the recognition of the things 
narrated as being really done, is fatal to the idea 
that Origen put only an allegorical sense upon the 
narrative. But a true translation of the words, 
which is as follows, ‘Some things, which then were 
done, were types of those things which are perpetu- 
ally accomplished by the power of Jesus,” still more 
absolutely forbids such a perversion.* 

The writer proceeds with another quotation from 
the same father, whom he represents as saying that 
‘‘the several bodily diseases, which he healed, were 
no other than figures of the spiritual infirmities of 
the souls that are to be cured by him.” + Here 
again, even on the translation proposed, the sentence 
would refute the argument which it is adduced to 
serve. But it is nota fair one ; rightly rendered, the 
words read, ‘“‘ Every weakness and malady which 
the Saviour cured at that time among the people — 
has a relation to the spiritual maladies of souls.” 

The next passages, referred to for the same 
purpose, but not translated, are as follows ; — from 
St. Hilary; “The deeds of Christ are prophetic of 
something beside; ” ‘To the events recorded in 
the Gospels there belongs an interior sense; ”’ 
‘¢ Although those things were done at the time, we 


* « Siquidem symbola quedam erant que tunc gerebantur eorum, que 
Jesu virtute semper perficiuntur.” On the Miracles of our Saviour, 
Discourse I. p. 8. 

t «*Omnis languor, et omnis infirmitas, quam sanavit Salvator tunc in 
populo, referuntur ad infirmitates spirituales animarum.”’ Ibid. 


THOMAS WOOLSTON. 959 


are yet to regard what they prognosticate for the 
future ;” ‘The actions now done present an out- 
line, a shadow, of what is to come ;”’— from St. 
Augustine; “ The acts, which were done by Jesus, 
have a significance for any person, [or, of something 
else] ;”?— from St. John of Jerusalem; ‘“ Every 
thing which Jesus did, was a sacrament ;’’ which, 
if we take the classical meaning of the Latin word 
I thus render, will signify, that every act of Jesus 
imposed an obligation on his disciples ; if we take 
the ecclesiastical sense, it will mean that every act 
of his was a mysterious, or holy, thing. Should I 
pursue the examples, I should have to continue a 
similar course of remark. One is led to ask, If 
such passages (which I have quoted in their order, 
as they stand where the general argument is pro- 
pounded,) were thought by Woolston to favor his 
argument, what kind of authorities would he 
imagine would be suitable to refute it ? 

But to pass to the main proposition of Woolston, 
to which this is but subsidiary. “The literal his- 
tory,” says he, “of many of Jesus’s miracles, as 
they are recorded in the evangelists and commonly 
believed by Christians, does imply improbabilities, 
and incredibilities, and the grossest absurdities.” * 

It implies “ incredibilities.” If it does, there is an 
end of the question. Of course, the human mind 
not only should not, but cannot, believe what is no 
subject for belief. But nothing is metaphysically 


* On the Miracles of Our Saviour, Discourse I. p. 19. 


260 OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 


impossible, which is within the power of God ; and 
this power no one, who believes in a God in any 
sense, will pretend to have been transcended in the 
miracles ascribed to Jesus. Nothing is morally im- 
possible, the occurrence of which is consistent with 
God’s attributes. Nothing, which is both metaphy- 
sically and morally possible, can be maintained to 
be abstractly incredible ; and having, in an early 
stage of these discussions, exhibited in full the proof, 
that the miraculous intervention, alleged to have 
taken place in Christianity, not only was consistent 
with the divine attributes, but that those attributes, 
viewed in connexion with the then existing state 
of the world, authorized a reasonable and strong 
hope of such an intervention, I will venture now to 
regard that part of the argument as disposed of, as 
far as it belonged to me to treat it. 

But again; the literal history of many of the 
miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the evangelists, 
implies “improbabilities.” If it does, let us know 
what the improbabilities amount to; for the mere 
fact that an occurrence was antecedently unlikely 
to happen, is nothing against it, nothing to dis- 
courage our belief of its reality. Every thing, — 
the most common, every-day event, — provided 
it involves any sort of combination, is exceedingly 
improbable till it has happened; but this does 
not hinder, that, when it has happened, it can 
be proved. It was immensely improbable, two 
hours ago, that we,—Just so many, and neither 
more nor fewer, ourselves and no others, — should 


THOMAS WOOLSTON. 261 


be sitting here at this moment, dressed just as we 
are, in such and such attitudes, and arranged in 
this order. An easy computation, under the doc- 
trine of chances, would show that there were many 
thousands of millions to one against it. A denial 
beforehand that the fact would be just what it turns 
out to be, would be one of the safest things imag- 
inable. Nevertheless here we are, under just these 
circumstances; and if pains enough were taken, it 
might be proved to-morrow that we were here. 

I do not mean to say, that events out of the usual 
course of nature stand on the same ground in this 
respect as others, but only to point out, in passing, 
how easily and groundlessly an argument may be 
framed out of an alleged antecedent improbability. 
As to the miracles of Jesus and his apostles, any 
peculiar improbability attributed to them must be 
judged of with relation to their occasions and cir- 
cumstances. If, as I have formerly argued, the good- 
ness of God made it reasonable to expect, that, under 
the given circumstances, a special communication 
of religious truth to men would be made,— a commu- 
nication, which, if made, could only be authenticated 
by miracles, — then, on a consistent Deist’s own 
principles, the mere fact, that the acts authenticating 
such a revelation were miracles, does not invest them 
with any peculiar character of improbability. All 
of improbability, that belongs to the act merely as 
supernatural, must, in this stage of the inquiry, be 
abandoned, as justification of any prejudice against it. 

If the opponent chooses to go further and say, 


262 OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 


that, looking one by one at the particular miracles 
recorded, he observes circumstances of incongruity, 
of unfitness, of incoherence, or the like, in the rela- 
tions of each or any, creating in his mind a distrust 
of their reality, he resorts to a perfectly legitimate 
mode of reasoning. Only let him understand how 
far his reasoning will bear him out. If he has ob- 
served in a narrative some perplexity, some obscu- 
rity, some feature which he cannot account for, — if 
there is something, which, as he understands it, 
strikes him as improbable, highly improbable, pecu- 
harly improbable, — he must go further yet, before, 
as a reasonable man, he can refuse it credit. He 
must consider whether the perplexity is capable of 
being removed or lessened by candid comment; or 
whether candid comment will show, that ignorance 
concerning the purpose and bearing of some cir- 
cumstances might be expected to exist, consistently 
with the supposition of their reality as facts; or, 
once more, taking the objections in all their weight, 
what weight ought to be allowed them in opposi- 
tion to the positive proof. 

There is an infinity of things, of which we should 
have said perhaps all that we can say against those 
miracles, before we looked at the proof of their 
reality; but which, being acquainted with that 
proof, we all of us believe with a perfectly unques- 
tioning assent. Incredibility stops the mouth of 
testimony. That shown, the debate is ended. But 
improbability does nothing of the kind. It only 
creates a contest between itself and proof. Is the 


THOMAS WOOLSTON. 263 


improbability strongest, or the evidence? ‘That is 
the question. Or, in other words, which improba- 
bility is greatest and should prevail, the improba- 
bility that the events have happened, or that the 
evidence which maintains them is delusive ? 

When the question is brought to this point, as I 
confidently submit that it must be, it will be seen 
divested of its pretension to practical importance ; 
for, assuming the related facts, of a sufficient occa- 
sion for miracles, sufficient power to work them, 
and strong external evidence to their actual occur- 
rence, a skilful opponent of Christianity would 
scarcely be disposed to rest his opposition on any 
alleged distinctive improbability in the particular 
miracles ascribed to Jesus and his first ministers. 

But, says Woolston once more, the literal history 
of many of the miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the 
evangelists, “‘does imply absurdities.” This he 
manifestly intended for his strong point; and, with 
the aid of a free and coarse wit, he has extensively 
pursued his illustrations of it. I shall dismiss this 
part of his case with one remark, which, unless I 
err, covers the whole ground. A relation of what 
is wonderful in its nature, and unfounded in fact, is 
only subject for merriment; a relation of what is 
wonderful in its nature, and well founded in fact, is 
sublime. It is the truth or no truth, that makes all 
the difference ; and to hold up any thing to ridicule 
because of its being extraordinary, is a mere begging 
of the only material question, — the question as to 
its being proved, or provable. 


264; OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 


Some of us have read, in a recent book of trav- 
els, of a city in the untrodden ways of Central 
America, in which an isolated community preserves 
the order and magnificence of the high ancient civ- 
ilization of this western world.* ‘To such as re- 
garded the account as fabulous, it was a subject for 
no little diversion; to those who read it under dif- 
ferent impressions, it was, and well might be, a 
subject of intense excitement. Had a person come 
into one of our cities fifty years ago, and given no- 
tice that he should exhibit the actual preserved re- 
mains of an animal more ancient than the ever- 
lasting hills, how abundant would have been the 
mockery which would have rebuked the absurdity 
of that pretension. But, since then, geology has 
become a science, adding a new and vast store of 
perfectly ascertained facts to the wondering appre- 
hension of man; and of how opposite a character 
were our feelings, how full of admiration and of 
awe, when, a few evenings ago, was presented to 
us in this place the body of a fish, which, of no 
more consequence in its time than any one of the 
countless tribes that swarmed in the chaotic waters, 
had been disclosed again from the very bowels of 
one of the most ancient rock formations, to tell to 
modern man something of the story of (no one has 
yet computed how many) millions of years ago. T 
In minds not possessed of the evidence for the 


* Stephens’s Incidents of Travel, &c. Vol. II. pp. 195, 196. 
t The allusion is to one of the Lowell Lectures of Professor Lyell. 


THOMAS MORGAN. 265 


Christian miracles, and therefore standing in rela- 
tion to it as if it did not exist, it was easy for the 
writer now under our notice, as it has been for 
others following in his steps, to create, by means 
of trifling and ludicrous associations, a prejudice 
against that marvellous character, which, as mira- 
cles, was inseparable from them. But the logical 
fallacy is exposed a8 soon as it is looked at. If 
they were not wrought, then laugh at them who 
will. But till that conclusion is arrived at, no 
touch of ridicule can affect them. Certainly their 
untruth is not capable of being proved by that, 
which itself has no other foundation than the sup- 
position of their untruth. The very words, in which 
Woolston himself admits what would be the rightful 
impression of a well-sustained miraculous narrative, 
expose the worthlessness of all such reasoning. «J 
believe it will be granted on all hands,” he says, at 
the beginning of that discourse which treats of the 
three miracles of Jesus’s raising the dead, “ that the 
restoring a person, indisputably dead, to life again, 
is a stupendous miracle, and that two or three such 
miracles, well circumstanced and credibly reported, 
are enough to conciliate the belief of mankind, that 
the author of them was a divine agent, and invested 
with the power of God, or he could not do them.” * 

Dr. ‘Thomas Morgan was the author of a work, 
published anonymously, in the year 1738, under 
the title of « The Moral Philosopher, in a Dialogue 


* On the Miracles of our Saviour, Discourse V. p. 3. 
Vor, II. 34 


266 OBJECTIONS OF 


between Philalethes a Christian Deist, and Theo- 
phanes a Christian Jew,” to which he added, a 
year after, “The Moral Philosopher, Volume Sec- 
ond, being a Further Vindication of Moral ‘Truth 
and Reason.” 

Dr. Morgan professed himself to be a Chris- 
tian in his own way, which was this, as de- 
scribed in his own words. “Jesus Christ, as I 
think, has given us the best account of the Nature, 
Attributes, and Will of God, of any other prophet 
or lawgiver in the world, and therefore I am a 
Christian, in contradiction to any other historical 
religion, or a Disciple of Christ in opposition to 
Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Mahomet, or any 
other reformer in religion.” * He speaks in as strong 
terms as any advocate of Christianity can well do, 
of the need there was of a new revelation of 
religious truth at the era of the appearance of 
Christianity ; of the “state of gross ignorance and 
darkness, which had overspread the whole world, 
both Jew and Gentile,” and from which “ we are 
recovered by the Gospel dispensation to the true 
knowledge of God and ourselves, and of those 
moral relations and obligations which we stand in 
to him and to one another ;” of the “ great uncer- 
tainty” then existing “ concerning a future state 
and the concern of divine Providence in the govern- 
ment of the world,” in the place of which, he says, 
‘¢we are furnished with clearer conceptions, and 


* Moral Philosopher, Vol. I. p. 411. 


THOMAS MORGAN, 267 


brought to a more satisfactory way of reasoning 
about these matters.” * ‘They who would judge 
uprightly,” he continues, ‘of the strength of human 
reason in matters of morality and religion, under 
the present corrupt and degenerate state of man- 
kind, ought to take their estimate from those parts 
of the world which never had the benefit of revela- 
tion; and this perhaps might make them less con- 
ceited of themselves, and more thankful to God for 
the light of the Gospel.” ft 

But when he comes to indicate more particularly 
his view of the nature of that revelation which ban- 
ished this darkness and uncertainty, it is in such 
terms as these. “The manifest design of the 
Christian dispensation was to bring men from this 
gross ignorance and darkness of superstition, to the 
knowledge of God and themselves, relating to their 
duty and happiness ; and, as this was brought about 
by a peculiar and extraordinary Providence, by 
persons furnished with wisdom and knowledge 
much superior to the ignorant, stupid world, and 
armed with courage and resolution enough to ven- 
ture their lives, and propagate the true religion in 
opposition to all the civil powers and laws then in 
being; I say, such a revival and propagation of the 
true religion, or of truth and reason in matters of 
religion, may properly enough be called a revelation 
from God, or manifestation of truth from him, who 
was certainly the author and director of so great 


* Moral Philosopher, p. 143. t Ibid. pp. 144, 145. 


268 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES. 


a reformation in the world.* Accordingly all exter- 
nal evidence for Christianity he rejects. ‘There 
is one,” he says, ‘‘ and but one certain and infalli- 
ble mark or criterion of divine truth, or of any 
doctrine, as coming from God, which we are obliged 
to comply with as a matter of religion and con- 
science ; and that is, the moral truth, reason, or fit- 
ness of the thing itself, whenever it comes to be fairly 
proposed to, and considered by, the mind or under- 
standing.” + And again; “I take Christianity to 
be that most complete and perfect scheme of moral 
truth and righteousness, which was first preached to 
the world by Christ and his apostles, and from them 
conveyed down to us under its own evidence of 
immutable rectitude, wisdom, and reason.” t 

Other objections to Christianity, which, as being 
more formally urged by some other writer, I have 
referred to some other stage in this discussion, are 
produced in the course of Morgan’s immethodical 
treatise ; and, particularly, two thirds of his second 
volume are occupied with animadversions on con- 
tents of the Jewish scriptures, and on their baneful 
connexion, as he considers it, with the Christian 
scheme. But the characteristic doctrine of his 
work is that which has just been mentioned. 
Christianity is to be received, by whosoever re- 
ceives it at all, because its doctrines and precepts 
recommend themselves to his mind as essentially 
true and right, and not because of any supernatural 


* Moral Philosopher, Vol. II. p. 23. t Ibid. Vol. J. p. 85. 
{ Ibid. pp. 96, 97. 


THOMAS MORGAN, 269 


attestations to the supernatural character of its au- 
thor. “There can be no connexion between the 
power of working miracles, and the truth of doc- 
trines taught by the miracle-workers.” “Miracles, 
alone considered, can prove nothing at all, and 
ought to have no weight or influence with any- 
body.” ‘“ ‘The supernatural power of working mira- 
cles has no manner of connexion with moral truth 
and righteousness, and yet moral truth and right- 
eousness, when it comes to be proposed to, and 
considered by the mind, is the only sure proof or 
evidence of any doctrine, as coming from God, and 
to be received as a matter of divine authority. * 
‘“T think it certain, that the being and moral per- 
fections of God, and the natural relations of man to 
him, as his reasonable creature and the subject of 
his moral government, cannot depend upon the 
truth or falsehood of any historical facts, or upon 
our forming a right or wrong judgment concerning 
them.” + ‘This is the doctrine, which, in various 
forms of repetition, such as I have quoted, makes a 
thread running through the treatise. 

It may also have happened to some of us to hear 
this play upon words put forward as a solid objec- 
tion to the pertinence and weight of the miraculous 
testimonials to Christianity, by persons who, without 
considering whereof they affirm, profess their faith 
in that religion on the ground of what they call its 
internal evidences, or its conformity to their views 


* Moral Philosopher, Vol. 1. pp. 98, 99. 
t Ibid. pp. 345, 346. 


270 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES. 


of truth and reason. I make three brief observa- 
tions upon it. 

First, it is preposterous for any one to pretend to 
a belief in Christianity, who at the same time pro- 
fesses to discard belief in its miracles, because, dis- 
tinctly appealing to those miracles as it did, it was 
either a gross fraud, or else that appeal was a well- 
founded one. There is no conceivable medium be- 
tween those two conclusions. 

Secondly, to say that Christianity approves itself 
by force of its internal evidence, meaning by this 
its conformity to the sense of truth and right in the 
mind of the individual to whom it addresses itself, 
is, to be sure, to attribute to it a character which it 
really possesses, — that is, provided the individual 
mind be in a favorable state, — but it is to rest it 
upon evidence, on which it will not stand for a mo- 
ment. ‘The proof that it will not, is this. Those 
doctrines, embraced in it, which the most fully com- 
mend themselves by their intrinsic reasonableness 
to the judgment of a fair mind, (the moral perfections 
and parental providence of God, for example,) did 
not establish themselves in the convictions of the 
profound thinkers of antiquity, till Jesus came, and, 
with the sanction of miraculous works, authorita- 
tively declared their truth. As far as their intrinsic 
excellence, and, of course, their internal evidence, 
went, that was the same before his advent, as it 
was after. But that evidence did not cause them to 
be received for true. ‘They still remained subjects 
of denial, or, at best, of doubt. Or, take the car- 


THOMAS MORGAN. yard 


dinal doctrine of a future life and retribution; in 
what sense can any man pretend to say, that any 
internal evidence, it carries with it, is a sufficient 
guaranty to him of its truth? Independently of what 
he has been told on the authority of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, who proved himself by his miracles to be a 
messenger from God, who cannot deceive, what more 
does any man know about immortality and a judg- 
ment to come, than was known by those sages of 
old time, who, sagacious as they were, far beyond 
the common lot of men, lost themselves in endless 
doubts on these great subjects, and, even when their 
guesses were the least erroneous, never pretended 
to any thing like certainty ° 

Once more ; when it is said, that, strictly speak- 
ing, neither a miracle nor any other act, will 
prove an abstract truth, the proposition derives 
whatever of plausibility it has from an artifice of 
language. In the only sense in which it is true, no 
judicious Christian ever thought of maintaining the 
contrary. What the defender of Christianity main- 
tains, is not that a miracle will directly prove an 
abstract truth, but that it proves that he who works 
it is invested with a divine authority. It is the 
ambassador’s commission, establishing his claim to 
credence. Accordingly, what he announces in that 
capacity must be taken for a divine communication. 
The message which he delivers is God’s message ; 
and, being God’s message, it must be true. ‘There 
are certain problems, profoundly interesting to us, 
which the best efforts of our reason, employed in in- 


ya. OBJECTIONS OF 


vestigation, are not competent to solve. Ample 
experience has shown that they are not. The con- 
dition of our future being is one of these problems. 
If we are to have a solution of it, it must be through 
a divine communication. The testimony of God, 
if we can but obtain it, — of God, who cannot 
but know the truth, and who cannot design to 
mislead us, — will settle all our doubts. That tes- 
timony his miraculous interposition assures us that 
we have ; and, if that miraculous interposition can- 
not be said, in logical strictness, to prove an abstract 
truth, it does however prove the presence of a cer- 
tain testimony to that truth, which testimony is in 
its nature conclusive. “I think it certain,” says 
Morgan, “ that the being and moral _perfections of 
God, and the natural relations of man to him, can- 
not depend upon the truth or falsehood of any his- 
torical facts, or upon our forming a right or wrong 
Judgment concerning them.” Certainly not; but 
that is not the question. The divine perfections 
cannot depend upon any historical fact, but our 
knowledge or ignorance of the divine perfections 
may. If there be any visible historical fact, as 
a miracle, which makes out to the satisfaction of 
our reason another historical fact, namely, that 
God has sent a message to man, then, unless we 
will renounce our reason, we shall accept the sub- 
stance of that message as true. 

The last of this group of writers, in the former 
half of the last century, was Thomas Chubb of 
Salisbury. He was not highly educated, and 


THOMAS CHUBB. Qe 


passed his life in a mechanical occupation; but he 
was a man of an active and ingenious mind, and 
wrote in a clear and vigorous style which helped 
to bring his works into large circulation. Notwith- 
standing a rather original cast of thought, there is 
little of originality in his topics, the limited range 
of his reading confining him for the most part to 
the same classes of objections, which, with illustra- 
tions less full than his own, or of a different kind, 
had been urged by other modern writers, and some 
of which had no better foundation than a miscon- 
ception of the state of the facts that occasioned 
him perplexity and distrust. His publications 
during his life, succeeding each other through a 
course of years from 1730 to 1747, had chiefly 
exposed him to the reproach of being a free-thinker 
in respect to the interpretation of scripture, and an 
heretical dissenter from the prevailing views of the 
Christian system. It was not till the appearance 
of his posthumous works that he became distinctly 
known as an opponent of the supernatural authority 
of that religion. 

The reader of his numerous tracts will, 1 believe, 
observe only one material topic of argument, ad- 
ditional to those urged by some other writer, in 
connexion with whose name it has appeared 
preferable to discuss them respectively, either 
heretofore, or in some future Lecture. In _ his 
‘¢ Discourse on Miracles, considered as Evidences 
to prove the Divine Original of a Revelation,” he 
presents a view, which, considering the advantage 

Vor. II, 35 


QT As MIRACULOUS POWER. 


afforded by popular apprehensions concerning mi- 
raculous power, I have been surprised not to see 
insisted upon by other opponents of the faith. 
Because of their silence respecting it, (with this 
single exception, as far as I know,) the point does 
not appear to have attracted attention on the other 
side. Objecting to the principle that miraculous 
evidence will never corroborate any thing but the 
truth, Chubb writes as follows: 

‘Tam to inquire, Whether a man who may be 
said to work a miracle (as the case is explained 
above) is at liberty to use such miracle-working 
power well, or ill, and employ it in serving what 
purposes he pleases. ‘This inquiry is in some 
measure answered in the precedent section, in 
which it is observed, that men will be at liberty, 
whilst they are agents, to exercise their natural 
ability in serving what purposes they please ; for 
take away that liberty, and their agency ceases, or 
is destroyed. And, as this is the case with respect 
to the natural abilities of men, so it must be the 
same with regard to all supernatural power which 
may be superadded, whether it be that of working 
miracles, or otherwise. For, as the exercise of 
such power depends upon a man’s will, or at least 
he is afore apprized of the exercise of it; so, in 
the very nature of the thing, it must be at his 
option to direct it this way, or that way, to make 
it attend the truth, or a lie. Indeed, God may, if 
he please, give to, or withhold such miracle-working 
power from a man, or he may withdraw it when 


THOMAS CHUBB. 275 


given; but then he cannot give it, and restrain a 
man in the use of it at the same time, that being 
a ccntradiction, and an impossibility in nature. 

‘Tf it should be urged as above, admitting this, 
then miracles prove nothing with respect to the 
divinity of a revelation. For, if he who works a 
miracle is at liberty to annex it to truth or false- 
hood, of which a by-stander cannot possibly be a 
judge, whether it be annexed to one or the other 
of these ; then it will follow, that miracles prove 
nothing in the present case.” * 

This argument, which, if the statement involved 
in it could be sustained, would be a weighty one, is 
founded on what I understand to be a popular, but 
an altogether erroneous, notion on the subject. ‘To 
Jesus, to whom “ was given the spirit without meas- 
ure,” and who, as he had perfect discretion, might 
be trusted (if one may so speak) with perpetual, in- 
herent power, the capacity of working miraculously 
at his unrestricted pleasure may safely be attributed. 
But I conceive, that neither the reason of the thing, 
nor the language of Scripture, leads us to suppose 
that this was the case with his ministers. 

Because I read that their master said to them, 
‘‘ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead,” 
and because I believe that they received that com- 
mission, and acted under it, I do not therefore infer 
that God gave them a power to control the course 
of nature in the exercise of their imperfectly in- 


* Discourse, &c. pp. 29, 30. 


276 MIRACULOUS POWER. 


structed will; to stand for instance, in a grave- 
yard, and summon its company of re-animated dead 
around them. I take it, that, though in popular 
language it may be said with sufficient propriety 
that Peter cured the lame man at the temple gate, 
or that Paul inflicted blindness upon Elymas the 
sorcerer, yet the philosophical and exact state- 
ment of such transactions is given in those other 
words of scripture, “‘ God wrought special miracles 
by the hands of Paul; ”* “ God also bearing them 
witness with signs and wonders and with divers 
miracles, according to his own will;” + ‘ Barna- 
bas and Paul declared what miracles and wonders 
God had wrought among the Gentiles by them; ” f{ 
“‘God gave testimony unto the word of his grace, 
and granted signs and wonders to be done by their 
hands.” § 

These men were the chosen instruments, through 
which a supernatural divine power was from time 
to time exerted. But it was not committed to their 
insufficient wisdom to select the occasions. ‘That 
was the office of a wisdom infmitely superior to 
theirs. When the occasion came, they were super- 
naturally empowered to know that it had come, and 
to announce the mighty work to follow. ‘This was 
their agency in the miracle, and this was what con- 
nected that act of God’s power with their persons. 

Nor is any exception to this view of the nature 
of miraculous operations presented by the case of 


Tics; Kix Las t Hebrews, ii. 4. 
¢ Acts, xv. 12. § Ibid. xiv. 3. 


THOMAS CHUBB. WTS 


those, who, being supernaturally empowered to 
speak in foreign languages, are known to have 
indiscreetly used that power.* Was not a mira- 
cle, | may be asked, performed every time that one 
of those individuals spoke in a language which he 
had not learned by the common process? and, sup- 
posing that he used this gift injudiciously, was not 
a miracle just so often unfitly performed ° 

I answer, By no means. He was the subject 
of one miracle, not the worker of several. ‘There 
was but one miracle wrought in his case, just as 
in the case of a leper cleansed. ‘That was, when, 
by an immediate act of God, he was supernaturally 
put in possession of his peculiar gift. And _ all 
the necessary conditions, justifying the wisdom of 
that act, occurred, if, on the whole, the harmless 
power thus bestowed would be used by its possessor 
for the furtherance of the Christian cause; even 
though, being bestowed on a fallible man, it should 
not always be used discreetly. ‘That one miracle 
performed, — the knowledge of the words and con- 
structions of a foreign language once supernaturally 
communicated to a man’s mind, —it remained 
there, subject, as to its exercise, to all the condi- 
tions of knowledge obtained in any other way. 
Once acquired, whether miraculously or by natural 
means, the mind could not again, except by a mira- 
cle, be dispossessed of it. And though, from the rea- 
sons of the case, it follows, that the individuals, 


* 1 Corinthians, xiv. 


278 THOMAS CHUBB. 


chosen to be distinguished by such an extraordi- 
nary endowment, would be such as, on the whole, 
would apply it to the advancement of its proper 
object, yet, with these explanations, it could not 
be said that a miracle had been inappropriately 
wrought, should they on some occasion employ 
their power unprofitably. ‘Their different utter- 
ances in a foreign language, — indiscreet at times, 
if it were so, — were not, as has been explained, 
so many miracles. ‘They were but the result of one, 
which was God’s own act, and had been wrought 
under all the securities of his unerring wisdom. 

If this view of miracles, as always, strictly speak- 
ing, acts of God, and never trusted to the imperfect 
discretion of fallible men, is recognised for what I 
esteem it, the only scriptural one, then it follows 
that the, infidel argument which introduced it, falls 
to the ground, the possibility of their being wrought 
for the furtherance of any other purposes but the 
divine, being precluded by the conditions of the 
case. If only God’s power works a miracle, it will 
be only God’s truth that a miracle will ratify. 

I shall next proceed to some remarks upon views 
of the historians, Hume and Gibbon. 


LECTURE XxX. 


OBJECTIONS OF HUME AND GIBBON. 


Tue first Course of these Lectures, in which | 
undertook to exhibit a demonstration of the truth 
of Christianity, beginning with considerations of 
the nature of miraculous interposition, and proceed- 
ing to the conclusion that the doctrine of Jesus 
of Nazareth, having in fact been published with 
miraculous attestations, was to be received as a 
special message from God to man, brought to view 
two topics which introduced the names of the his- 
torians Hume and Gibbon. The first was, the an- 
tecedent credibility of miraculous operations, and of 
testimony affirming their actual occurrence, which 
was defended in opposition to the argument of 
Hume in the first part of the “ Essay on Miracles ” 
in his “Inquiry concerning Human Understand- 
ing,” wherein that distinguished writer maintains, 
that, miraculous agency being opposed to human 


280 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. 


experience, and false testimony not being opposed 
to it, it is more reasonable to believe testimony 
to be groundless, than to believe miracles to be 
true.* The other topic was, the circumstances 
of the propagation and establishment of Christian- 
ity, an undeniable effect which required a cause, 
and which, it was argued, could only be accounted 
for on the basis of a divine interposition ; — a con- 
clusion opposed to the theory of Gibbon, who, in 
the Fifteenth Chapter of his “ History of the De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” has attempt- 
ed to explain the effect in question as proceeding 
from merely natural causes. + 

To these topics I do not now recur. But other 
considerations, relating to the main subject, were 
proposed by the same eminent writers, to which it 
is proper that our attention should here be given. 

The first point, which is thus presented, will not 
detain us long. Hume, of whom it has been per- 
haps not too indulgently said, that ‘his private 
character exhibited all the virtues which a man of 
reputable station, under a mild government, in the 
quiet times of a civilized country, has often the 
opportunity to practise,”{ had by constitution no 
relish for the severe and lofty morals of the Chris- 
tian code ; and the experience of a remarkably even 
and prosperous life had not brought him the instruc- 
tion, by which, presented in personal experience, a 


* See Volume I. p. 54, e¢ seq. t Ibid. p, 248, et seq. 
} Mackintosh, View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, p. 352. 


DAVID HUME. 281 


mind so sagacious as his could scarcely have failed 
to profit. But still it remains remarkable, that one 
who could expatiate so philosophically as he has done 
on the obligations of benevolence and justice, should 
have overlooked the absolute and indissoluble de- 
pendence of both upon certain obscurer virtues in the 
department of self-control, which he thought he saw 
reason for excluding from an ethical system. 

If his scheme of human virtue could in all re- 
spects be sustained, it must be owned that it would 
discredit Christianity. In his “ Inquiry concerning 
the Principles of Morals,” — a work, which, free as 
it is, for the most part, from paradox, or even ori- 
ginality, he had the good judgment to prefer to his 
other philosophical writings, — in the course of his 
argument that “ personal merit consists altogether 
in the possession of mental qualities, useful or agree- 
able to the person himself or to others,” he insists 
that, “ as every quality, which is useful or agreeable 
to ourselves or others, is, in common life, allowed to 
be a part of personal merit, so no other will ever 
be received, when men judge of things by their 
natural, unprejudiced reason, without the delusive 
glosses of superstition and false religion. Celibacy, 
fasting, penances, mortification, self-denial, humility, 
silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish 
virtues, for what reason are they everywhere reject- 
ed by men of sense, but because they serve to no 
manner of purpose, neither advance a man’s fortune 
in the world, nor render him a more valuable mem- 
ber of society, neither qualify him for the enter- 

Vox, II. 36 | 


282 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. 


tainment of company, nor increase his power of 
self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that 
they cross all these desirable ends;” and so on.* 

Now, as to what Christianity calls the virtues of 
self-denial and humility, — for “ silence, solitude,” 
and the rest, Christianity does not account to be 
virtues, and they do not belong to this question, — 
the standard, by which Mr. Hume here assumes to 
try their pretensions to that character, is certainly a 
very low and false one. But I do not care to stand 
upon that point. Assume it for the true standard ; 
and it remains to be asked, How was it possible for 
Mr. Hume, judging the habits of mind in question 
even by that test, to dismiss them from the class of 
virtues? Humility and self-denial, — such is the 
doctrine, — ‘‘ are every where rejected by men of 
sense, because they serve no manner of purpose.” 
What purpose ought they to serve, in order to 
escape this sentence of rejection ? 

A Christian would be prompt to reply, They 
serve the purpose of pleasing God, since they are 
habits of mind, growing out of a becoming sense 
of his perfections and authority. But this answer 
would not be pertinent in an argument with Mr. 
Hume. What purposes then does he contemplate, 
the serving of which would constitute the vin- 
dication of these qualities? He explains, in the 
context ;— the advancing of ‘a man’s fortune in 
the world, rendering him a more valuable mem- 


* Inquiry, &c. § 9. (Essays, &c. Vol. HH. pp. 305, 306.) 


DAVID HUME. 283 


ber of society, qualifying him for the entertain- 
ment of company, and increasing his power of 
self-enjoyment.” 

These are not the sublimest objects of life; and 
it is supposable, that a moral quality might serve 
some purpose, though it did not serve these. But 
suppose they were, will humility and self-denial 
bear that test, or not? Is what is so easily assumed 
concerning them, true in point of fact ? 

Does humility, for instance, not increase ‘“ the 
power of self-enjoyment,” but, on the contrary, as 
it is expressed, “cross that desirable end?” What 
habits of mind does humility expel? Vanity and 
pride ;— vanity, which constantly makes demands 
for approbation and applause, such as from their 
nature cannot be satisfied, and will be gratified 
even the less by reason of its own offensiveness ; — 
pride, which above all things makes a man sensi- 
tively vulnerable in his social relations ; which gives 
him the‘least of pleasure and the most of annoy- 
ance in all his intercourse ; which makes him care 
less for kindness which every man may have, than 
for confessions of his superiority which are not so 
easily extorted ; and which strips him bare to the 
touch of affronts, which, imagined or real, are noto- 
riously so much harder to endure than mere injuries. 
Does self-denial “serve no manner of purpose ?” 
To self-denial belong purity, contentment, patience, 
industry, prudence, disinterestedness. These vir- 
tues cannot exist without it; rather, they are de- 
partments comprehended in it, or synonyms of it. 


284, OBJECTIONS OF 


Can even so much be truly said to the disparage- 
ment of these virtues, as that “they neither ad- 
vance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him 
a more valuable member of society ; neither qualify 
him for the entertainment of company, nor increase 
his power of self-enjoyment?” Justice and_ be- 
nevolence, in their various manifestations, fill out 
Mr. Hume’s idea of social virtue; but of both, 
self-denial, evidently, and humility, materially, — 
though this latter fact does not lie so much on the 
surface, — are indispensable elements. ‘The highest 
type of virtue is commonly considered to be the 
heroic ; but of heroism the very essence is self-denial, 
self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice. 

I leave this subject with a very partial exposition. 
It should be largely illustrated to do it justice. 
Could I think it necessary to the main argument, it 
would be my duty to go into a large illustration, to 
the sacrifice of other topics. But I have no doubt, 
that, apart from all question of the divine authority 
of the Christian rule, a just thinker, who will give 
attention to the subject, will conclude that it is im- 
possible to frame so much as a plausible theory of 
duty, in which humility and self-denial will not have 
a prominent place; and that it must be owned to 
be a strong recommendation of Christianity, instead 
of a prejudice to its claim, that in this instance it 
has brought ethical doctrines into full view, which, 
as soon as thus distinguished, an enlightened phi- 
losophy cordially approves, though, before, it had 
failed properly to estimate them. One wonders 


EDWARD GIBBON. 285 


the more, that so obvious connexions and influences 
as have been pointed out, should not have had just 
consideration, when in another place, in the person 
of his Stoical philosopher, Mr. Hume is found 
speaking of the man of virtue as looking ‘“ down 
with contempt on all the allurements of pleasure, 
and all the menaces of danger.” * ‘To contemn 
pleasure and danger is the prerogative of no man, 
except him who has made close acquaintance with 
the offices of self-denial. 

I pass to a brief notice of a topic presented by 
Mr. Gibbon, distinct from that formerly remarked 
upon in connexion with his name. The object of 
the Sixteenth Chapter of his History is to show, that 
toleration of diversities of religious sentiment was 
the prevailing spirit of the Roman rule, and that the 
amount of severity practised upon the early Chris- 
tians was not so great as has been commonly repre- 
sented; from which he would have his readers 
conclude, that the argument drawn in favor of the 
sincerity of the first publishers of Christianity from 
the danger to which their profession exposed them, 
may have been pressed too far. On this point I 
make three brief remarks. 

First ; when the advocate of Christianity argues, 
that the original witnesses to the fact of the mira- 
culous authentication of that religion were honest 
witnesses, he does not rest that argument solely on 
their voluntary self-exposure in its cause to suffer- 


* Essays, &c. Part I. Essay 16. (Vol. I. p. 140.) 


286 PERSECUTIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 


ings and martyrdom. [ remind those, who listened 
to my remarks in a former Course, designed to 
establish the honesty of the witnesses, that the 
following considerations were also brought to view ; 
namely, the enormous incongruity of the supposi- 
tion that a wicked fraud was practised, to the end 
of establishing a system which teaches the most 
sincere, generous, and lofty virtue ; the simplicity, 
artlessness, frankness, fair-dealing, every where ap- 
parent on the face of the record; the fact that, if 
there were fraud at all, there was conspiracy, a sup- 
position refuted by the occasional differences and 
even dissensions between the confederates, — differ- 
ences too serious, considering the essential interest 
of the questions which divided them, not to have 
been fatal to a plot, in which each party was at the 
mercy of the rest, and disclosure would have offered 
So easy an expedient of triumph and revenge; the 
trouble, inconvenience, labor, to which, independent- 
ly of any hazard to life, the adventurers in such an 
enterprise exposed themselves; the extreme impro- 
bability that, if a fraud had been devised, the servants 
and successors of Jesus should have presented him as 
they did, in the character of a religious deliverer 
merely, and not in that, which their nation was 
prepared to welcome, of a political redeemer. These, 
and other like considerations, pursued into due de- 
tail, go far towards establishing the point of the 
honesty of the first witnesses for Christianity.* 


* See Lecture VI. 


EDWARD GIBBON, 287 


But, secondly; it is the testimony of the first 
witnesses, and not those of later times, that in this 
argument we have occasion to confirm. We can- 
not indeed read, without strong emotion, nor with- 
out a persuasion of the force of the existing evi- 
dence which could sustain such an energetic faith, 
of the sufferings and martyrdoms of the believers 
of the second, third, and fourth centuries. But 
what we want especially to know is, by what tests 
the sincerity of the believers of the first century 
was proved. It is of less consequence to us, how 
many suffered in the persecutions of the Antonines 
and Diocletian. We would learn rather to what ill 
treatment they exposed themselves, who went abroad 
declaring that they had heard the gracious words 
of Jesus, and seen with their own eyes his mighty 
works. And as to this point, it has been shown by 
evidence produced at length in its place, that those 
first witnesses devoted themselves, by the part they 
took, to lives of peril and suffering, and that the 
extreme penalty of a violent death, which all braved, 
many were in fact compelled to pay. Of the per- 
secutions of the apostolic age Gibbon has not 
spoken. He treats of none earlier than the time 
of Nero. 

But, thirdly, with the means of information con- 
veniently accessible upon the subject, no one will 
feel hesitation in saying, that the usual accuracy of 
the industrious historian did not attend him on this 
occasion, and that his candor was not proof against 
the influences which beset it. The question has 


288 PERSECUTIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 


received the particular attention of the French 
philosopher as well as statesman, Guizot, and, 
more recently, of Professor Milman, in their notes 
upon Gibbon’s History; and any who would 
judge respecting it intelligently, will do well to 
consult the authorities produced by them, as well 
as to refer to facts, bearing upon it, collected 
before Gibbon’s time in such  store-houses of 
knowledge as Cave’s “ Lives of the Fathers,” and 
Lardner’s “Credibility of the Gospel History.” 
The most plausible ground of Gibbon’s distrust is 
the uncertainty as to the exactness of the testi- 
mony of Eusebius, who is a copious authority 
upon the subject, and who, it must be avowed, 
is justly chargeable with a proneness to exaggerate. 
But Eusebius may be owned to have been guilty 
of gross exaggeration in this instance, and yet the 
number of martyrdoms, under the succession of 
emperors down to Constantine, will remain vastly 
larger than any purposes of the argument will 
require. Nay, that he could hazard such strong 
statements is a fact scarcely to be accounted for, 
except on the supposition that the unexaggerated 
reality was enough at once to excite the writer’s 
imagination, and to secure the contem poaneous 
reader’s assent. 

Nor is Eusebius by any means the only authority 
on the point; but others, and among them Pagan 
writers, go very far to bear out his representations 
in all their force. Not to recur to the famous letter 
of Pliny to Trajan, what are we to say of that of 


EDWARD GIBBON. 289 


Tiberianus, Governor of Syria, to the same mild 
Emperor, within the first century of the preach- 
ing of the Gospel, wherein he says, I am quite 
weary of punishing and destroying the Galileans, or 
people of the sect called Christians, according to 
your orders. Yet they never cease to profess 
voluntarily, what they are, and to offer themselves 
to die. Wherefore I have diligently used advice 
and threats, to discourage them from daring to 
confess to me, that they belong to that sect. But, 
in spite of all persecution, they persist still in doing 
it.’ * ‘That punishment and destruction of the 
Galileans, which could weary the practised military 
and judicial severity of a Roman proconsul, certain- 
ly could not have been on a small scale. ‘“ His- 
torical criticism,” says Guizot, “does not consist in 
rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not 
agree With a particular system, as Gibbon does in 
this chapter, in which, except at the last extremity, 
he will not consent to believe a martyrdom.” And 
he proceeds to give examples of the Pagan histo- 
rians, who “justify in many places the details which 
have been transmitted to us by the historians of 
the church.” | The disingenuous treatment of this 
subject by Gibbon excited to an unusual degree of 
severity that most candid of critics, Mackintosh. 
“The sixteenth chapter of the History of the De- 
cline and Fall,” said he, “I cannot help considering 


* Tiberian. Epist. (Cotelerii Patrum Apostolic. Opp. Tom. II. p. 181.) 
t Milman’s Gibbon, chap. 16, juxta not. 178. Milman gives all the 
notes of Guizot upon the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters 


Voi. IL. 37 


290 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, 


as a very Ingenious and specious, but very disgrace- 
ful extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the 
Roman magistrates against the Christians. It is 
written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of 
prejudice against the sufferers. It is unworthy of a 
philosopher and of a man of humanity...... Dr. 
Robertson has been the subject of much blame for 
his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish 
murderers and tyrants in America. ‘That the six- 
teenth chapter of Mr. Gibbon did not excite the 
Same or greater disapprobation is a proof of the 
unphilosophical, and indeed fanatical animosity 
against Christianity, which was so prevalent during 
the latter part of the eighteenth century.” * 

I return to Hume, who, in the second part of his 
‘“‘Kissay on Miracles,” presents a course of argu- 
ment, in some particulars different from what | 
have yet remarked upon, which also, in one of its 
branches, and in a different specification, is sug- 
gested by Gibbon in a passage of the fifteenth 
chapter of his History. The former of these writers 
makes an explicit allegation of four particulars of 
defect in all existing testimony to miraculous oper- 
ations. 

First, he says, “‘ There is not to be found, in all 
history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number 
of men, of such unquestioned good sense, educa- 
tion, and learning, as to secure us against all delu- 
sion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as 


* Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Mackintosh, chap. 5. (Vol. I. pp. 
245, 246.) 


DAVID HUME. 29] 


to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to 
deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the 
eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in 
case of being detected in any falsehood; and at the 
same time attesting facts, performed in such a pub- 
lic manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, 
as to render the detection unavoidable; all which 
circumstances are requisite to give us a full assur- 
ance in the testimony of men.” * 

To this statement, as intended to apply to the 
witnesses for the miracles of Jesus, I except as fol- 
lows; 

As to the “sufficient number” of witnesses, Jesus 
wrought most of his miracles in the presence of nu- 
merous spectators; among them, his twelve con- 
stant attendants, while others were only transiently 
about his person. As to the “unquestioned good 
sense, education, and learning,” said to be necessary 
to give security against all delusion on the part of 
witnesses, there is no proof that the first followers 
of Jesus were absolutely illiterate men. Too much 
has been said of their low condition. They proba- 
bly belonged to the reputable middle class of Jews. 
One of them, John, was “known to the high- 
priest.” t One of them, Matthew, we read of as 
dispensing a liberal hospitality ;{ and the father of 
two carried on his business with the help of hired 
servants.§ At any rate, education and learning 


* Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, § 10. Part 2. (Essays, 
&e. ‘Vol.IT p. 113.) 


t John, xviii. 15. ¢ Luke, v. 29. § Mark, i. 20. 


292 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


are not requisite for escaping delusion as to matters 
of fact, cognizable by the senses; nor are men of 
speculation and erudition thought the best wit- 
nesses in the courts, as to things obvious to mere 
sight and hearing. Good sense is necessary to 
guard against delusion, and this there is no reason- 
able pretence that the ministers of Jesus were defi- 
cient in; while no education and learning would 
have increased their qualifications for judging whe- 
ther they really saw a storm stilled by a word, or a 
leper cured by a touch. As to “ undoubted integ- 
rity,” refuting all suspicion of design to deceive 
others, what proof of such integrity shall be allowed 
to avail, if not the proof found in those circum- 
stances, formerly collected, and some of them this 
evening recapitulated, under which we receive the 
apostolic testimony? As to “credit and reputation 
in the eyes of mankind, so as to have a great deal 
to lose in case of being detected in any falsehood,” 
it will not do by any means to say that, for a gene- 
ral rule, it is the great, who are most sensitive to the 
disgrace of falsehood, or whose falsehood is apt to 
be visited with the most severe retribution from 
society; and further, no man,—considerations of 
character and conscience apart, —can have more to 
lose than his life, which these men bravely put at 
hazard. Lastly, as to the facts being “ performed 
in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part 
of the world, as to render the detection unavoida- 
ble,” the celebrity of the part of the world, which 
is the scene of an attempt at imposture, has nothing 


DAVID HUME. 293 


to do with the ease or difficulty of its detection. In 
that respect, provided the inquisition is likely to be 
equally jealous, the streets of Capernaum present 
an ordeal as severe as the Roman court or market- 
place. And as to publicity of manner, what could 
well be more public than the miraculous feeding of 
the thousands, or the cure of the blind man in the 
temple, subjected forthwith to a hostile examina- 
tion of the most searching nature ° * 

Secondly, says Mr. Hume; ‘ We may observe 
in human nature a principle, which if strictly exam- 
ined, will be found to lessen extremely the assurance 
which we might, from human testimony, have in 
any kind of prodigy;” + and he goes on to ex- 
plain his allusion to be to the disposition of man- 
kind to lend a credulous ear to tales of wonder. 
Let that principle be freely allowed. Men are 
imaginative and credulous, no doubt, and, under 
proper appliances, are prone to superstition. Still 
every such principle has its province and its limits. 
It is not an agent of mere capricious and indefinite 
energy. And let any one answer, whether he de- 
tects within himself a love of the marvellous so 
strong, that, should he be told that a person, other- 
wise undistinguished, had wrought some wonderful 
works, he would feel impelled to accept the story, 
without inquiry and full proof, when the consequence 
would be, as unquestionably it was with the early 
Christians, that he must devote himself to a new 


* John, ix. 18, et seq. 
t Inquiry, &c. § 10, Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 114.) 


299A, TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


course of life, relinquish old friendships and asso- 
clations, undertake unaccustomed labors, and face 
a host of appalling dangers. I can answer that 
question for myself; and I suppose the answer of 
others would be the same. 

Thirdly ; it is said, ‘It forms a very strong pre- 
sumption against all supernatural and miraculous 
relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound 
among ignorant and barbarous nations.” * But 
the nations, in which the miraculous relations of 
Christianity are now current, are the most cultiva- 
ted nations of the earth, which suppose themselves 
justified, on the soundest philosophical grounds, in 
yielding them full credit. Nor can those relations, 
in their origin, encounter a reasonable prejudice 
from this cause. The period in which Christianity 
made its appearance was a period of high ceiviliza- 
tion, in which it would be a great mistake to sup- 
pose that Judea did not in some considerable 
degree participate. It had been over-run three 
hundred and fifty years before by Alexander ; and, 
for three centuries from that time, had been con- 
stantly in communication with the Greeks of some 
of the kingdoms into which his empire was dismem- 
bered; and when, not long before the Saviour’s 
birth, it passed under another sway, it was the 
sway of the Romans, in that era of unprecedented 
refinement, contemporaneous with the downfall of 
the republic. Some of the Jews were supersti- 
tious, no doubt ; — there is no time, when, to some 


* Inquiry, &c. § 10, Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 116.) 


DAVID HUME. 295 


extent, some portion of a people are not. But 
another element of prevailing sentiment among 
them, as among their masters, at the time in ques- 
tion, was that of a philosophical skepticism.* ‘To 
discredit the tendencies of opinion in the Christian 
era, it can by no means be called an ignorant and 
barbarous age, even in Judea; still less would the 
remark hold good as to other parts of the empire, 
to which the new faith was however communicated 
with an astonishing rapidity. 

“T may add,” says Mr. Hume, “as a fourth 
reason which diminishes the authority of prodigies, 
that there is no testimony for any which have not 
been expressly detected, that it is not opposed by 
an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only 
the miracle destroys the credit of the testimony, 
but even the testimony destroys itself.” ‘This 
is not expressed with the author’s usual perspicuity ; 
and a reader would naturally understand him to 
mean, that there is no particular miracle appealed 
to by the friends of any religion, — Christianity, 
for instance, — which is not discredited by a larger 
amount of adverse testimony, relating to that iden- 
tical alleged fact. But his meaning, as he proceeds 
to explain it, is quite different. ‘To make this 
the better understood,” he says, ‘let us consider 
that, in matters of religion, whatever is different, 
is contrary, and that ’tis impossible the religions of 
ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China, 


* Enfield’s History of Philosophy, &c. Book IV. chap. 1. (Vol. I. pp. 
153, 155.) 
t Inquiry, &c. § 10. Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 119.) 


296 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


should all of them be established on any solid foun- 
dation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have 
been wrought in any of these religions, —and all 
of them abound in miracles, —as its direct scope 
is to establish the particular system to which it is 
attributed, so has it the same force, though indirectly, 
to overthrow every other system. In destroying a 
rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those 
miracles, on which that system was established, so 
that all the prodigies of different religions are to be 
regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of 
these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite 
to each other.”” And he presently goes on to specify 
certain stories of miraculous occurrences in ancient 
and modern times, concluding with the remark, 
““ What have we to oppose to such a cloud of wit- 
nesses, but the absolute impossibility, or miraculous 
nature, of the events, which they relate? And 
this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, 
will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation.” 
In short, Hume would discredit the evidence 
produced in favor of the miracles which Christians 
receive, by referring to evidence for other alleged 
miracles which they reject, and representing the 
one to be as good as the other. Gibbon also labors, 
in his wary way, to create the impression that the 
miracles of Jesus and his Apostles stand upon no 
better grounds of proof, than do many of those 
legends of succeeding times which Protestant 
Christendom rejects; and this was what I had in 
view, when I remarked just now that the argument 


DAVID HUME. 297 


of Hume, in one of its branches, and with a different 
specification from his, was also presented by the 
historian of the Roman Empire. The former found 
his illustrations in miraculous accounts of profane 
antiquity and of recent times; the latter, in nar- 
ratives of the middle ages. ‘An historian,” says 
Gibbon, ‘ought not to dissemble the difficulty ..... 
of defining with precision the limits of that happy 
period, exempt from error and from deceit, to which 
we might be disposed to extend the gift of super- 
natural powers. From the first of the fathers to 
the last of the Popes, a succession of bishops, of 
saints, of martyrs, and of miracles, is continued 
without interruption ; and the progress of supersti- 
tion was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that 
we know not in what particular link we should 
break the chain of tradition.” * 

The nature of the argument thus proposed is 
first to be briefly considered, in order that we may 
distinctly understand by what sort of facts it needs 
to be sustained, so as to be effective in its appli- 
cation to a given case; and it so happens that 
Hume himself provides an illustration, than which 
none could better serve as a test of its validity. 
Having described it in the words just now quoted, 
he adds; “ ‘This argument may appear over subtile 
and refined ; but is not in reality different from the 
reasoning of a judge, who supposes that the credit 
of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any 


* History, &c. chap. 15, juxta not. 81. 
Vot. Il. 38 


298 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


one, is destroyed by the testimony of two others, 
who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues 
distant at the same instant when the crime is said 
to have been committed.” * 

I accept the supposed case, as a fair illustration. 
But I say, that the judge, if he is at all fit for his 
place, will suppose no such thing as it is here said 
he will, from the mere conflict of evidence described. 
If two men affirm that a third has done an act, and 
two other men attest, that, at the time when he is 
charged with having done it, he was elsewhere, it 
is true that the two testimonies are in substantial 
opposition ; but it is by no means true that the 
judge will thereupon decide that the first testimony, 
or that both, are false. No; he will have to do pre- 
cisely what the friend of Christianity desires should 
be done with its evidences and with the evidences 
of adverse systems ; that is, he will have to examine 
whether either of the conflicting testimonies has 
signs of truth, and, if either, which. It is perfectly 
reasonable for the unbeliever to say, Here are evi- 
dences produced for different religions ; show me, if 
you can, the differences between them, evincing 
the sufficiency of yours and the nugatory charac- 
ter of the others. But to take the ground, that, be- 
cause miraculous testimony is pretended in corro- 
boration of different claims, therefore no heed 1s to 
be given to it in connexion with any, 1s not reason- 
able, any more than it would be for a court and 
jury to say, Behold, here are advocates and wit- 


* Inquiry, &c. § 10. Part2. (Essays, Vol. Il. p. 120.) 


DAVID HUME. 299 


nesses for both parties ; it is useless to give any at- 
tention to the matter; the story of both is false. 
And let us dwell a moment on another thought, 
which this topic suggests. Pretended miracles, 
we may be apt to think, have so often been the 
resort of fraud, that the pretension of miracle may 
reasonably create a strong suspicion of fraudulent 
design. ‘The claim, in short, should be regarded as 
going far towards a refutation of itself. But when, 
let me ask, has miracle been the resort of fraud ? 
Of course, when a pretension to divine authority 
was to be urged. And why has it been then re- 
sorted to? Precisely because it was declared by 
the common sense of men, that no other pretension 
would then serve the purpose. If that pretension 
could be substantiated, then the alleged revelation 
accompanying it deserved credit. An alleged re- 
velation did not deserve credit, and would not ob- 
tain it, unless that pretension was put forth, and 
was substantiated to the satisfaction of those whom 
it addressed. ‘Thus impostors have had recourse to 
the allegation of miraculous power from the very 
necessity of their case. They have pretended to be 
in possession of it, because, to the end in question, 
the mind of man demands it; the mind of man de- 
mands it, because it recognises it as the proper 
signature of truth; and will any one say that he 
will give no heed to that, which, provided it be well 
established, is the proper signature of truth, merely 
because, by reason of its possessing that character, 
impostors have exerted all their art to counterfeit it ? 


300 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


In a court of justice, there is nothing but testimony 
that will expose the truth. ‘Testimony must per- 
force be resorted to; no other expedient will serve. 
Because true testimony will establish a true conclu- 
sion, and because false testimony, which looks as if 
it were true, will, by virtue of that appearance, re- 
commend a false conclusion, therefore designing men 
contrive to bear plausible false witness. But no 
sane man would defend the soundness or the safety 
of the proposition, that, whereas some witnesses 
are not trust-worthy, therefore the truth of all testi- 
mony is to be distrusted, and all its benefit foregone. 

The records of imposture then will teach to an 
inquirer the useful lesson to be cautious in investi- 
gation, but from the duty of investigating they will 
not at all dispense him. The Christian holds to the 
reality of the miracles wrought in attestation of his 
faith, in opposition to the reality of those alleged 
in favor of any other system; and the Protestant 
Christian asserts that the miracles, related to have 
been wrought in behalf of Christianity in its primi- 
tive age, stand upon a much firmer basis of evi- 
dence than any which find a place in the history of 
Christendom in any later time. We are to see 
what can be said in contradiction of their views in 
these respects. We have attended to the indepen- 
dent proof of the miracles of the first age of Chris- 
tianity. The argument we have now undertaken 
to treat invites us to inquire, whether our conviction 
of their reality is subject to be shaken by the ex- 
trinsic consideration of the existence of other proof, 


DAVID HUME. 301 


of the same kind and equal amount, the validity of 
which we are not accustomed to admit. Because, 
if it is so, we are at least inconsistent in our rea- 
soning. And if, further, it can be made to ap- 
pear, that equally good evidence, in character and 
amount, may be produced for some adverse reli- 
gion, as for Christianity, then the application of 
Hume’s argument will need to be allowed in its 
full force; the equal conflicting testimonies will 
nullify one another. As then it will be impossible 
to trust our convictions in both instances, we shall 
be precluded from trusting them in either. 

The reason why I have made this last distinction 
between being merely shown, in one case, to be 
inconsistent in our reasoning, and being compelled, 
in the other, to renounce our Christian faith, will be 
obvious. If it were true, as Gibbon insinuates, 
that a succession of miracles down to a recent time, 
accredited by the Catholic church, stands on sub- 
stantially the same ground as those of the primitive 
age, then the Protestant believer, who receives the 
one and rejects the other, would be justly charge- 
able with inconsistency ; but it would not therefore 
follow that the primeval miracles were false, be- 
cause it might be that the similarly authenticated, 
more recent, miracles were true. And the belief 
in them both alike involves no essential incongruity ; 
indeed every Catholic Christian actually entertains 
it. And when one considers this, it may well oc- 
casion some surprise, that Mr. Hume, having care- 
fully explained his doctrine to be, that pretensions 


302 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


to miracles wrought in favor of different religions 
will silence one another, should then have proceeded 
to fortify the argument with illustrations mostly 
drawn from the history of the Romish church. As 
far as these are concerned, it would be sufficient to 
reply, If the evidence for the more recent alleged 
miracles is really as good as for those of the first 
century, you have, it is true, disarmed the Protes- 
tant believer, because you have shown that he 
ought to admit both or neither. But you have left 
unassailed the foundations of Christianity in the 
minds of a great majority of those who profess 
it; nor can you shake it, until you have proceeded 
so much further as to prove that the equal testi- 
mony received by them as applicable to both cases, 
is, as to one, unsound. ‘Then you may insist, that 
it should also be renounced as to the other. 

Having remarked this in a word, since it is prob- 
able that all or most whom I address are incredu- 
lous as to alleged miracles, of recent times, in the 
Romish church, I shall shape my further argument 
accordingly, and attend briefly to the inquiry, 
whether any miracles whatever (those of the Jew- 
ish religion manifestly are not embraced in the 
question, because they come in conflict neither with 
Christianity in general, nor with Protestant Christ- 
ianity in particular) present claims to credit, of 
equal force with those of the primitive age of 
Christianity ; or whether, on the contrary, there is 
a wide and marked difference between their re- 
spective evidences, demanding that the one class 


EDWARD GIBBON, 303 


should be rejected, on the same principles on which 
the others are received. 

The specification of Gibbon relates to the mid- 
dle ages of Christianity. In language meant, of 
course, to convey more than meets the ear, he says, 
«¢ We are insensibly led on to accuse our own in- 
consistency, if, in the eighth or the twelfth cen- 
tury, we deny to the venerable Bede, or the holy 
Bernard, the same degree of confidence which in 
the second century we had so liberally granted to 
Justin or to Ireneus.” * “The knowledge of for- 
eign languages was frequently communicated to 
the contemporaries of Irenzus, [that is, at the end 
of the second and beginning of the third century, ] 
though Irenzeus himself was left to struggle with 
the difficulties of a barbarous dialect while he 
preached the Gospel to the natives of Gaul; ” + and 
in proof that this pretension was made in that age, 
he refers to a passage of Irenzeus, t in which, how- 
ever, he makes no reference to the gift of tongues, 
but merely excuses himself for the rudeness of 
his Greek style, occasioned by his having passed 
many years in the use of the language of a bar- 
barous tribe. Nor, since the time of that father, 
has any pretension of that kind been found to 
have been set up, with the sole exceptions of the 
Life of Pachomius, an obscure Egyptian monk of 
the fourth century, and the later Lives of the 


* History, &c. chap. 15. juxta not. 81. + Ibid. juxta not. 74. 
t Contra Hares. Pref. § 3. (p. 4. Edit. Massuet.) 


304 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


missionary Xavier, of the period of the Refor- 
mation.* 

‘© The expulsion of demons,” continues Gibbon, 
‘“‘was considered as a signal, though ordinary tri- 
umph of religion.” But if what is called demo- 
niacal possession be, according to the opinion of 
some of the best modern expositors, the same with 
insanity, then it was capable of being sometimes 
cured by natural means, as Jesus seems to have 
intimated that it was, when he said, “If I, by the 
finger of God, cast out demons, by whom do your 
children cast them out?” The difference between 
his cures and those wrought by common agency 
was the same in respect to this malady as to others, 
those of blindness, for instance, paralysis, or leprosy. 
Others cured them, when they cured them at all, by 
natural means, — he without any such instrumen- 
tality ; and it is very credible that, in the second or 
third century, cures of this kind might be effected 
by medical treatment, or addresses to the imagina- 
tion, which a too easy faith might regard as mani- 
festations of a supernatural efficiency. 

He goes on; “In the days of Irenzus, about the 
end of the second century, the resurrection of the 
dead was very far from being esteemed an uncom- 
mon event.” But the passage of Ireneeus, referred 
to by him in corroboration of this extraordinary 
statement, contains no note of time whatever, 
attributing such occurrences to his own age. He 


* Tillemont, Saint Pacome. Art. 18. (Hist. Eccles. Tom. VII. p. 94. 
Edit, Brux.) Douglas, Criterion, &c. p. 79. (Edit. 1754.) 


EDWARD GIBBON. 305 


speaks of the dead having been raised, but in terms 
which admit perfectly well of his being understood 
as referring to the apostolic times.* On the other 
hand, Dr. Conyers Middleton, who had made a 
thorough investigation of the whole subject, as- 
serts, that ‘from the time of the apostles there is 
not an instance of this miracle to be found, as 
having occurred in the first three centuries, except 
a single case, slightly intimated in Eusebius, from 
the books of Papias, which he seems to rank 
among the other fabulous stories delivered by that 
weak man.” + And, as to the whole subject of a 
pretended succession of miracles, the same writer 
quotes some remarkable language of St. Chrysostom, 
in which that father, than whom none of his time 
(he died at the beginning of the fifth century) was 
better authorized to speak the sense of the whole 
Christian community, refers to the long discontinu- 
ance of miracles as a notorious fact. f 

The work of Dr. Middleton, to which I have 
thus referred, entitled “A Free Inquiry into the 
Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have 
subsisted in the Christian Church, from the Ear- 
liest Ages through several successive Centuries,” 1s 
an elaborate investigation, conducting to the con- 
clusion, as expressed in his own words, that ‘“ we 
have no sufficient reason to believe, upon the au- 


* The passage, no Jonger extant in the original Greek of Ireneus (a fact 
not mentioned by Gibbon), is preserved by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. 
§ 7. Fora judicious comment upon it, see Douglas, Criterion, p. 374. 

t Works, Vol. I. pp. 58, 59. $ Ibid. p. 105. 


Vou. IL. 39 


306 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


thority of the primitive fathers, that any such pow- 
ers were continued to the church after the days of 
the apostles.” * Middleton was a man able and 
learned enough to be the antagonist of Bentley ; 
and, liable as his work may be to objection in other 
respects, I see not how any one can read it, wheth- 
er Romanist or Protestant, without allowing that 
later pretensions to miracles in the church, whether 
or not they be esteemed credible, stand at least on 
very inferior grounds of evidence to those to which 
we have formerly attended as establishing the mira- 
cles of the first age of Christianity. That some of 
the Christian writers in the third, fourth, and fifth 
centuries, as well as later, professed their belief in 
miracles of their own times, may readily be granted ; 
there were men among them of very different char- 
acters ; — some more cautious and discerning, some 
more credulous and volatile. But what we want, in 
order to place them on a level, in point of historical 
authority, with the writers of the New ‘Testament, 
is, not the knowledge alone of what was their belief, 
but assurance also that their belief had a similar 
foundation. Suppose that Irenzeus had asserted, — 
which it does not appear that he did, — that dead 
men had been raised to life in his time; that alone 
is no reason for confounding the alleged fact, in 
point of authority, with those related by the evan- 
gelical historians. We should need to satisfy our- 
selves, first, that he was honest in so asserting, — that 


* Works, Vol. I. p. 1. 


DAVID HUME. 307 


he stated his sincere conviction. If we should be- 
come persuaded of this, we should then be ready 
for the inquiry, What were the grounds of this con- 
viction? If we should find that what he related, he 
believed upon hearsay, — vague, or even circum- 
stantial, and what he might esteem responsible 
hearsay, — that would fall far short of justifying a 
comparison of his statements with those of the 
evangelical record. Did he, once more, believe 
on the evidence of his own senses, what he relates; 
and, from the nature of the case, could his senses 
have been subject to no delusion; and did he tes- 
tify not alone, but did other equally competent wit- 
nesses substantiate his story? ‘Then we ought to 
believe his story. We ought to believe it for the 
same reason that we believe that of Matthew and 
John, concerning whom we have, to our satisfac- 
tion, ascertained these things. But no such case 
can be pretended; and, till there can, a Christian 
cannot be called upon, for his consistency’s sake, 
either to admit the miraculous relations of later 
times, or to reject those of the primitive age. 

Mr. Hume, in treating this argument, chose, un- 
doubtedly as the instances the most favorable to his 
object which his great knowledge of history would 
furnish, those of the report by Tacitus of the cure 
of a lame and blind man by the Emperor Vespasian 
at Alexandria, the restoration of the entire limb of 
the door-keeper of a Spanish cathedral, in conse- 
quence of the application of holy oil, as related by 
Cardinal de Retz, in his “Memoirs,” and the 


308 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


account of various cures, said to have been wrought, 
about the year 1730, at the tomb of the Jansenist 
Abbé Paris. The argument of Hume, thus illus- 
trated, gave occasion to a work, particularly occu- 
pied with an examination of the specified cases, 
though it also included others of the same descrip- 
tion. I speak of that excellent treatise of Dr. 
Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, entitled “ The Crite- 
rion; or Miracles examined with a View to expose 
the Pretensions of Pagans and Papists, to com- 
pare the Miraculous Powers recorded in the New 
Testament with those said to subsist in Later 
Times, and to show the great and material Dif- 
ference between them in point of Evidence.” Pa- 
ley, in his “ View of the Evidences,” also took up 
the subject, and contributed some valuable thoughts ; 
and the two writers together have so exhausted this 
branch of the inquiry, as to leave nothing to be 
added, while the books are so common as to make . 
it unnecessary for me to do more than refer to 
them. Dr. Douglas maintains, to use his own lan- 
guage, that ‘“ those extraordinary facts ascribed to 
a miraculous interposition among the Pagans of old, 
and Christians of later times, are all reducible into 
these two classes 5 

First, the accounts are either such as, from the 
circumstances thereof, appear to be false ; or, 

Secondly, the facts are such as, from the nature 
thereof, do not appear to be miraculous ; ” 

While, concerning the Gospel miracles, the oppo- 
site propositions are sustained, that, 


DAVID HUME. 309 


‘‘ First, the facts are such as, from the circum- 
stances thereof, they cannot be false ; 

Secondly, from the nature thereof, they must 
needs be miraculous.” * | 

The marks of falsehood in such histories he finds 
to be particularly three. 

“First,” he says, “we suspect the accounts to 
be false, when they are not published to the world 
till long after the time when they are said to have 
been performed ; 

Secondly, we suspect them to be false, when 
they are not published in the place where it is pre- 
tended the facts were wrought, but are propagated 
only at a great distance from the supposed scene of 
action. 

Thirdly, supposing the accounts to have the two 
foregoing qualifications, we still may suspect them 
to be false, if,im the time when, and at the place 
where, they took their rise, they might be supposed 
to pass without examination.” T 

Dr. Paley follows out these principles, and illus- 
trates and applies the reasoning of the treatise in a 
course of remark constituting one of those rare argu- 
ments, which, when once made, are made once for 
all. It is so concise as to admit of no abridgment, 
so pertinent that no part can well be spared, and 
so clear and complete as to require no expansion. 
There seems therefore nothing to be done but to 
state its heads; and this it appears proper that I 


* Criterion, pp. 47, 48. t Ibid. p. 52. 


310 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


should do, — common as is the book which contains 
it, — because it is the only way to avoid passing 
by entirely an interesting point in the general in- 
quiry. Dr. Paley divides the evidence produced 
for alleged miracles into two classes, consisting of 
proofs relating, first, to their reality as facts, and, 
secondly, to their character as miraculous facts. 
As to the first, he says, ‘‘ We may lay out of the 
case, first, such accounts of supernatural events as 
are found only in histories by some ages poste- 
rior to the transaction, and of which it is evident 
that the historian could know little more than his 
reader”; secondly, “accounts published im one 
country of what passed in a distant country, without 
any proof that such accounts were known or receiv- 
ed at home;” thirdly, mere ‘transient rumors,” 
such as attract some attention, and then die out; 
fourthly, what may be called “naked history,” or 
what has been followed by no corresponding effect 
that can be traced; fifthly, what, under certain de- 
fined conditions, is found ‘“ wanting in particularity, 
in respect to names, dates, places, circumstances, 
and the order of events preceding or following the 
transaction”; sixthly, such stories “as require only 
an otiose assent, upon which nothing depends, in 
which no interest is involved, which demand noth- 
ing to be done or changed in consequence of be- 
lieving them ” ; seventhly, ‘“ those which come mere- 
ly in affirmance of opinions already formed.” 
These tests are applicable to the credit of alleged 
facts, merely as facts. Proceeding to the tests of 


DAVID HUME. old 


alleged miracles in their character of miracles, sup- 
posing them to be facts, he shows that we are not 
justified in attributing this character, first, to any 
thing capable of being “resolved into a false percep- 
tion,” as, for example, the supposed vision of Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury ; secondly, to what may be 
called tentative, or experimental effects, “that is, 
where, out of a great many trials, some succeed” ; 
thirdly, to appearances in which, “allowing the phe- 
nomenon to be real, the fact to be true, it still re- 
mains doubtful whether a miracle was wrought,” as, 
for instance, the extinction, by a sudden shower, of 
the fire into which the Scriptures were thrown in the 
Diocletian persecution; fourthly, to occurrences, 
‘in which the variation of a small circumstance may 
have transformed some extraordinary appearance, 
or some critical coincidence of events, into a mir- 
acle ;’?—in which, in short, there is room for some 
single exaggeration, such as, if admitted, would 
change the whole character of the transaction. * 

These tests are no more strict than is reasonable, 
and on the other hand they are sufficient. They 
seem to draw a plain line between real and pre- 
tended miracles. Whatever will abide them all, 
remains unassailable. Whatever will not abide 
them all, cannot be considered as proved. The 
Gospel miracles will abide them all. Of no others, 
brought into competition with them, can this be 
shown. 


* The above are the heads of Paley’s argument in his View of the 
Evidences, Part I. Prop. 2. chap. 1. 


S12 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


And besides, the great distinction remains in 
reserve, that, in respect to those others, no case 
can be shown of persons pretending, as the Chris- 
tian witnesses did, to be original witnesses to their 
reality, who passed their lives thenceforward in 
labors, dangers, and sufferings, in attestation of 
the truth of what they delivered. ‘The Gospel 
miracles were proclaimed at the time and place 
of their occurrence ; the report of them was not 
transient, nor unconnected, but produced sensible 
effects, which survive to this day; 1t was not want- 
ing in particularity of statement; the assent which 
it obtained, if any, could not be one of mere indo- 
lence and inattention; it did not come in support, 
but in bold contravention, of opinions already formed ; 
and lastly, supposing the alleged facts to be facts, 
they had also all the four specified marks assuring 
them to be miraculous. 

On the other hand, as to the miracle of a double 
cure recorded of Vespasian, and selected by Hume 
as one of the facts best sustaining his argument, 
we have the account of it in a passage written by 
Tacitus at Rome, twenty-seven years after it was 
said to have taken place at Alexandria.* He re- 
corded it, not as of his own knowledge, but from 
report. It does not appear that he had examined, 
or that he believed it, but rather the contrary. It 
was not opposed to, but in favor of, received estab- 
lishments and opinions ; it was calculated to confer 


* Hist. lib. iv. § 81. (Opp. Tom. II. pp. 390, 391. Edit. Boston, ) 


DAVID HUME. ole 


honor on the Emperor at an important crisis of his 
fortunes, and on the God Serapis. The infirmities 
said to be cured were capable of being easily coun- 
terfeited. And in short the whole transaction was 
such as accords with the supposition of collusion 
and fraud. 

As to the extraordinary restoration of a lost part 
of the body, related by the Cardinal de Retz, his 
words are, “They showed me there [in a church at 
Saragossa] a man whose business it was to light the 
Jam pspsbon. and told me that he had been seen sey- 
eral years at the gate, with only oneleg. I saw him 
with two.” * ‘To this case part of the same remarks 
apply. It appears from the context that the narra- 
tor did not believe the statement, and it does not 
appear that he examined the restored limb, or made 
inquiries of the patient, or of others. The canons 
showed him a man, who, they said, had for years 
been seen with but one leg, and he saw the same 
person with two; but, for any thing that was 
proved or can now be known, the restored limb, 
supposing the statement of its previous condition 
to be true, may have been an artificial one. There 
existed also the evident encouragement to fraud, 
afforded by the correspondence of the alleged trans- 
action with the prepossessions of the people, and 
the interests of their priests. 

As to the alleged cures, finally, at the tomb 
of the Abbé Paris, Paley’s examination of them 


* Mémoires, Lib. iv. (Tome III. p. 411. Edit. Paris, 1817.) ‘‘ Ce pre- 
tendu miracle,” the Cardinal calls it. 
Vou, IT. 40 


3j14 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 


shows as follows. ‘They were tentative ; out of 
many thousand sick, infirm, and diseased persons, 
who resorted to the tomb, the professed history of 
the miracles contains only nine cures.” ‘The dis- 
eases were, for the most part, of that sort which 
depends upon inaction and obstruction, as dropsies, 
palsies, and some tumors. ‘The cures were grad- 
ual, some patients attending many days, some sev- 
eral weeks, and some several months. ‘The cures 
were many of them incomplete, and others were 
temporary.” So that the most that is made out is, 
that, under the operation of strong moral stimulants 
applied to the imagination and nerves, — the po- 
tent effect of which is an acknowledged fact in 
physiology, — “ out of an almost innumerable multi- 
tude which resorted to the tomb for the cure of 
their complaints, and many of whom were there 
agitated by strong convulsions, a very small pro- 
portion experienced a beneficial change in their 
constitution, especially in the action of the nerves 
and glands ;— while some of the cases alleged do 
not even require that we should have recourse to 
this solution,” but are “ scarcely distinguishable from 
the progress of a natural recovery.” 

The general result of the investigation into these 
several cases is as follows ;* “‘'These are the strongest 
examples, which the history of ages supplies. In 
none of them was the miracle unequivocal; by 
none of them were established prejudices and per- 


* View, &c. Part I. Prop. 2. chap. 2. ad calc. 


TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 315 


suasions overthrown; of none of them did the 
credit make its way, in opposition to authority and 
power; by none of them were many induced to 
commit themselves, and that in contradiction to 
prior opinions, to a life of mortification, danger, 
and sufferings ;—— none were called upon to attest 
them, at the expense of their fortunes and safety.” 
These characteristics those pretended miracles 
wanted. These remain unparalleled character- 
istics of the miracles which attended the first pub- 
lication of Christianity; and, being so, they refute 
the objection which has this evening come under 
our notice. 

My next subject will be Infidelity in France in 
the Last Century. 


LECTURE XXII. 


INFIDELITY IN FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 


“THE eighteenth century has denominated it- 
self The Age of Philosophy. From the first to the 
last of its writers, from Voltaire to Mercier, all 
called themselves philosophers. ..... This name, 
assumed with so much pretension, proclaimed with 
so much emphasis, repeated to very satiety, ought, for 
that reason alone, to encounter the strong suspicion of 
a reasonable mind. Reason is the foe of quackery ; 
and certainly there was something of this in the 
arrogation of a title, which ought to be awaited 
from posterity. It is posterity which assigns their 
character to the ages, while it receives the inheri- 
tance, and passes judgment on the monuments, they 
bequeath. It is France, it is Europe at large, 
which with one consent has acknowledged the long 
reign of Louis the Fourteenth, as an epoch of sig- 
nal advancement in the arts of imitation, as well 
as in all that gives stability and grace to the social 


INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 317 


state. But we do not find, that the writers who 
adorned it took upon themselves to anticipate the 
succeeding age, by baptizing their own the age of 
genius. From ours it is, that it has received those 
titles of distinction, to which no one contests its 
MOGI It has been reserved for us to bestow 
on our own time, — particularly in France, —and by 
our own sole authority, a kind of distinction such as 
to separate us from all other times, past and future. 

It is yet to be seen whether in this we have 
estimated ourselves correctly ; whether the eigh- 
teenth century, particularly in its latter half, and 
regarded as it ought to be in its governing charac- 
teristics and its general results, has been in truth 
an eminently philosophical age, in the fair accepta- 
tion of the word. In order to be proved such, 
it should undoubtedly be shown to be remarkable 
for sensible advances of the human mind, applying 
itself to all objects, which it is capable of advan- 
cing, connected with the glory and welfare of the 
human race. But if, on a thorough analysis, it 
should appear, that, — exceptions apart, as they 
always should be, —the general character of the 
eighteenth century (strongly marked as it has been, 
particularly in its last fifty years) has been that of 
the most shameful abuse of the mind in all depart- 
ments, succeeding to the most excellent efforts of 
intelligence and genius, then should not the infer- 
ence be, that in our time, and especially as relates 
to France, posterity will see only the most disastrous 
period of degradation, and that this grand title of 


318 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


philosophical age, will to our posterity be, what it 
has already become in the view of all sensible men, 
a sort of very ridiculous nickname, a kind of desig- 
nation drawn from contraries, like the name of 
Eumenides, which of itself denotes graciousness 
and bounty, but which the Greeks, that frivolous 
and facetious people, adopted to designate the 
Furies ?” * 

It is with these words that the elegant and judi- 
cious La Harpe introduces his treatise on the 
Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century, a work writ- 
ten just at the close of the period which it surveys.* 
It is not, as he goes on to explain, the condition of 
the exact or of the physical sciences that draws 
from him these reproachful comments, but the 
debasement of that higher philosophy, in the depart- 
ments of morals and religion, which comprehends 
the problems of the profoundest interest to man. 

Of this world of thought, Voltaire, born near to 
the close of the seventeenth century, and_ living 
down to the last quarter of the eighteenth, was in 
France the ruling genius. Voltaire and Montes- 
quieu are in letters the two great French names of 
that brilliant age; but the riper judgment of the 
latter corrected crude opinions, if indeed they may 
be called more than unconsidered prejudices, which, 
in a still famous youthful work (“The Persian 
Letters”), he had avowed, and gave the vast 
weight of his mature fame to the cause of revealed 
religion ; while the former, an infidel by constitution, 


* Cours de Littérature, Tom. XV. pp. 1— 3. 


VOLTAIRE. 319 


as far as it is possible that one should be made so 
by the tendencies of a discontented, vain, and mock- 
ing mind, —a mind of a sort of diamond hardness, 
as unimpressible as sparkling,—Jlabored in_ that 
vocation from youth to extreme age, from the time 
of the regency of the Duke of Orleans, from which 
every thing that tended to virtue was alien, nearly 
down to the time when the great nation of his birth, 
— the first of which history bears such a record, — 
proclaimed itself a nation of atheists, while it de- 
creed a sort of apotheosis to him for conducting it 
to that position. 

Voltaire was the friend and pupil of Bolingbroke, 
with whom he formed an intimacy during the re- 
tirement of the latter into France, and from whom, 
if it cannot be said that he derived his spirit of 
historical skepticism, he received an impulse which 
permanently quickened the restless activity of his 
mind in this particular direction. He had just 
arrived at manhood, when, by the death of Louis 
the Fourteenth, the licentious period, so well known 
in history as that of the Orleans Regency, began. 
The manners of the court emboldened the propen- 
sities of the young poet, and some verses in his 
first drama, the “ Edipus,” were a proclamation of 
the feeling which struck the key-note of his whole 
literary life.* Voltaire could not properly be called 
learned. I but repeat the sense of the best and most 


* « Nos prétres ne sont point ce qu ’un vain peuple pense , 
Notre crédulité fait toute leur science.” 
CEdipe, Acte 4, Scéne 1. (Tome I. p. 157. Edit. Paris. 1785.) 


320 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


impartial critics of his own nation when I say, that 
his knowledge, though various, was extremely su- 
perficial ; that, as to what he did learn, he devoured 
much more than he digested; and that, — a much 
more serious fault, and one which has caused, that, 
at the present day, no one thinks of appealing to 
him on a matter of erudition, —he was altogether 
faithless (to say careless merely is not at all to de- 
scribe the case) in matters of history, of philology, 
and of philosophy. 

But this did not hinder the effect of his writings, 
as it would have done, had they been prepared for 
the same circle of readers as his predecessors in the 
same argument had addressed. Infidelity, though 
first argued in England, was, if I may use the ex- 
pression, first popularized in France; and this ser- 
vice was done for it by Voltaire. The English in- 
fidels, his predecessors and contemporaries, had 
treated the question as, and for, scholars and phi- 
losophers. ‘This was true even of Chubb, who, 
though not a man of scholarly breeding, was a close 
as well as honest thinker, and preserved in_ his 
works a precise, unimpassioned, grave, philosophical 
tone of discussion. Such books were of a structure 
to present distinctly the points upon which the ar- 
gument rested, and the statements which must not 
be taken upon trust; and the class of readers to 
whom they were addressed had a preparation of 
logic and of knowledge, qualifying them to pass 
judgment on the force of the reasoning, and the 
truth of the alleged matters of fact, or at least 


VOLTAIRE. 321 


warning them to reserve their conclusions upon this 
or that step until they should have made the need- 
ful inquiry. By Voltaire the whole style of the 
argument was changed. He addressed himself to 
all, who could relish eloquence, poetry, and wit; to 
all of the French nation who loved to read a satire 
or listen to a play. The easy, skeptical humor 
of Montaigne, (which, as I formerly observed, 
though never distinctly directed against Christian- 
ity, created in readers a habit of thought leading 
ultimately to that application,) and the more sys- 
tematic levity and indifference of the philosophy of 
Bayle, (to whom the same remark may be applied, 
and who wrote for the French public, though he 
did not write in France,) these, among other 
causes, had prepared the way for a style of discus- 
sion, or rather of treatment, of the Christian faith, 
which did only the more execution on account of its 
want of precision, explicitness, and form. 

There had begun also in Voltaire’s youth, and 
there grew through his whole life, a passionate dis- 
content with existing institutions, in which he, 
moved by the ambition and the conscious indepen- 
dence of talent,—and also, | think it must be owned, 
by a genuine love of freedom, — largely partook. 
The higher classes of French society, educated to a 
degree of cultivation that made them distrustful of 
much that they had been taught, and impatient of 
any restraints on the profligate indulgences which 
had become the business of life, were ready to cheer 
on an assault upon the faith which professed to 

Vor. II, 41 


322, INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


stand as the guardian of pure and honest conduct ; 
and the people in the middling and lower condi- 
tions transferred to the church their disgust against 
the political institutions, whose oppressions, —in 
league, as it seemed, with ecclesiastical tyranny, — 
they had found so hard to bear. 

To an audience thus prepared did Voltaire ad- 
dress himself, in an indefatigable use of the exuber- 
ant resources of his extraordinarily versatile genius ; 
and, as far as sympathy between the parties avails 
in such a case, never did man represent more per- 
fectly the idéal of his age, than did this writer the 
ready, impetuous, graceful, superficial, busy, witty, 
anti-spwritual Frenchman of the time preceding 
the Revolution. His assaults on Christianity were 
made in every variety of form, in poetry and prose, 
in plays and romances, in works of history and 
philosophy, in the light pamphlet and the learned 
encyclopedia, now with ridicule and insult, and 
now with all the tone of a genuine indignation, 
founded on a sense of supposed wrong. From its 
apparent sincerity and generous earnestness, the 
latter would naturally be contagious, while the 
former would do the mischievous work of attaching 
light and degrading associations to what, in order 
to be fairly, ought to be at least calmly, — not to 
say, serlously,— viewed. ‘Thus a decisive effect 
would on the unguarded reader be produced by 
what were the most palpable of fallacies. Nothing 
but reasoning has in sucha case a right to convince. 
It is not necessary that that reasoning should be in 


VOLTAIRE. 323 


one form or another. It may be comprehended in 
a sentence, and that sentence may be a gay one: 
it may be but an implication, a question, a reference ; 
but, except just so far as it contains reasoning, the 
mind which it influences is deluded. 

But in fact other things besides reasoning do 
persuade and decide; and never were these extra- 
rational expedients of persuasion better understood 
than by this writer. He answered the most momen- 
tous problems of humanity witha jest. He worked 
at the foundations of the best established history with 
first this, then that, innuendo. Some unmanagea- 
ble fact or principle lay across his path; he met it 
with a downright assertion or denial, altogether un- 
supported, and went on his easy way. Such in- 
definiteness and confidence at once could not but 
do something of their intended work. A precise 
Statement invites the reader to consideration and 
inquiry; he inquires and considers, and then re- 
celves or rejects; or at least, if he does neither, he 
knows that as yet there is no reason why he should 
be convinced. But the reader who is so warmed 
and amused, is insensibly led on without perceiving 
what progress he is making; without perceiving 
how much has been proved, or even, distinctly, so 
much as what the writer undertook to prove, or 
what evidence he has adduced to prove it. He leaves 
off with only a vague impression, but not the less 
effective for its vagueness, that the writer un- 
derstands the whole subject, and has carried his 


324 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


point; that what he assailed, lies somehow exposed 
and overthrown. 

The particular position of Voltaire in respect 
to religious belief it is impossible to define. His 
own testimony is so various as to have no weight 
whatever in the decision. As late as the year 
1746, when he was more than fifty years old, he 
solemnly professed his faith in Christianity ; while, 
in his more honest declarations, he appears some- 
times as a friend of natural religion, sometimes as 
an atheist, sometimes as a universal skeptic, —a 
believer, not that there is a God, or that there is 
not, but that there is no ground, one way or the 
other, for any belief upon the subject. The best 
opinion is that he himself entertained none; for 
opinions, certainly, upon any subject, were not what 
his mind hungered to obtain. 

But the question which we have to ask concern- 
ing him is different. It is, whether he has produced 
any objection to Christianity which it belongs to its 
friends to dispose of, in order to the more complete 
clearing up and establishment of its evidences. 
And, in reply to this, I have but to say, that | know 
of nothing original in Voltaire except his manner 
of managing the argument. His topics of objec- 
tion are those of the English infidels, whose works 
I have already treated. Stripped of its ample at- 
tire of insinuation and merriment, his argument 
objects to Christianity, with ‘Tindal, as being need- 
less, unlikely, partial, and insufficient and unsuita- 


VOLTAIRE. 325 


ble for its intended use.* With Bolingbroke, he 
calls in question the integrity of its records, and 
the reasonableness of its doctrines and morality. t 
With Collins, he denies the applicability of Old 
Testament prophecies.{ He enlarges on the hint of 
Toland in respect to apocryphal writings of the 
early Christians. § With Hume, he represents the 
Christian miracles as incredible, and, with Wool- 
ston, as absurd; || and with Gibbon, whom, how- 
ever, he anticipated in this, and who made no little 
use of his materials, he refers the introduction and 
establishment of Christianity to merely natural 
causes. 

Neither to the philosophy of one portion of 
these topics, nor to the history of others, can I 
find that he has contributed any principle or fact, 
which at all varies the state of the argument, as 
our former reflections on the same points have 
represented it. ‘There is, however, one subject of 
high importance, which he has urged to a greater 
extent than any preceding writer, and which has 
not yet received our particular attention. | refer 
to the connexion of the religion of the New Testa- 


*E. g. Traité de Metaphysique, chap. 9. Philosophe Ignorant, § 31. 
(CEuvres, Tome XL. pp. 82, 158. et. seq. Edit. Paris. 1785.) Examen 
Important, &c. ad calc. (Tome XLI. p. 422, et seq.) 

t Ibid. chap. 12. (Ibid. p. 300.) Diew et les Hommes, chap. 33. (Tome 
XLII. p. 156. et seq.) 

t Examen Important, chap. 14. (Tome XLI. p. 314, et. seq.) 

§ Collection d’Anciens Evangiles. (Tome XLIV. p. 65, et seq.) 

|| Examen Important, chap. 10. (Tome XLI. p. 279, e¢ seq.) Histoire de 
1’ Etablissement du Christianisme, chap. 6. (Ibid. p. 327, et seq.) 

I Dieu et les Hommes, chap. 35-—37. (Tome XLII. pp. 171, ef seq.) 
Histoire de l’ Etablissement, &c. (Tome XLIV. pp. 372, et seq.) 


326 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


ment with that of the Old. Not having space now 
to enter into the consideration of it, without the 
omission of other topics, properly embraced within 
the subject of this evening’s Lecture, I defer it till 
the next, in which it will be equally in place. How 
far the spirit in which Voltaire approached that 
class of questions was favorable to their correct 
solution, may be partly guessed from the terms in 
which he presumed to speak of the critical labors 
of Newton, that sublimest specimen of the human 
race. “Newton,” says he, ‘“abased himself to a 
serious consideration of the question,”? Who was the 
author of the Pentateuch ? * | 

“The second epoch of the eighteenth century 
in France,” says Villemain,+ ‘was represented by 
Diderot, —the epoch of the distinct passage from 
deism to atheism; ..... from a tenacious but rea- 
sonable liberty to a hatred of all power; finally, 
from assertion of the right of free inquiry to a to- 
tal abandonment of every principle.” 

The great work, by which Diderot moved the 
mind of France, and wrought for the accomplish- 
ment of its awful and not distant destinies, was 
that vast repository of knowledge, the “ Encyclope- 
dia, or Universal Dictionary of Sciences, Arts, and 
Trades.” In this, as I scarcely need say, his prin- 
cipal coadjutors were D’Alembert and Helvétius, 
avowed atheists like himself. Helvétius was the 


* Examen Important, chap. 4. (Tome XLI. p. 254.) 
+ Cours de Littérature Francaise, (18e. Siécle. Part. I. Tome II. p. 
259.) 


THE ENCYCLOPADISTS. at 


first who systematically attacked the foundations of 
morality, substituting for them, in his treatise “ On 
the Mind,” a system of materialism and fatalism, 
which became one of the fashions of that boasting 
time. D’Alembert did not parade, though he did 
not disguise, his disbelief in a superior intelligence ; 
nor does he appear to have loved his opinion with any 
thing of the ardor of proselytism. His great abilities 
were devoted rather to the culture of mathematical 
and physical science; and, when he sometimes 
spoke of religion with a warmth alike foreign to 
the calmness of philosophy and of his own temper- 
ament, it seemed not to be so much hatred of itself 
that excited him, as of its institutions and its min- 
isters. 

Besides less systematic expressions of his disbelief 
in all religion, in a variety of connexions, in the Ency- 
clopeedia, the opinions of Diderot, unformed at first, 
but settling at length in an uncompromising atheism, 
are recorded in his translation or rather paraphrase 
of Lord Shaftesbury’s “ Essay on Merit and Vir- 
tue”; for to the English writers he owed much, and 
freely professed his obligations in his short treatise 
entitled ‘‘ Philosophical ‘Thoughts,” and in his “ Let- 
ter upon the Blind, for the Use of those who can 
see”; all three of which compositions appear in the 
first volume of his collected works. ‘The ‘“ Philosophi- 
cal Thoughts” would properly come under our sur- 
vey, since, When that work was written, he was still a 
believer in natural religion. But, as far as it treats of 
Christianity, it presents no topic which we have not 


328 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 


already considered in connexion with some other 
name ; and indeed the principal division of it, rela- 
ting to that subject, and entitled, “On the Sufficien- 
cy of Natural Religion,” is little else than a brief 
abstract of the argument of Tindal, though it con- 
tains no reference to that writer. When he produced 
the last-named work, the “ Letter upon the Blind,” 
he had already renounced the belief in a God ; 
and his argument in it, aimed against that doc- 
trine and against the reality of moral distinctions, 
belongs to another controversy. 

The floating atheism of the Encyclopedia was 
systematized before long in the once famous book 
entitled the “System of Nature”, generally attribu- 
ted, at the time as well as since, to the Baron von 
Holbach, a German nobleman, resident in Paris, 
who had before produced a work entitled ‘ Sacred 
Contagion, or Natural History of Superstition,” and 
who, from the liberal hospitality extended by him, 
for forty years, to the circle of infidel wits, acquired 
the name of “the host of philosophy”, le maztre- 
@hétel de la philosophie. This work contains a 
concocted system of atheism and fatalism. It pro- 
poses natural science as a better substitute for all 
systems of theology, morals, and metaphysics. It 
revives the old Pagan dreams of the eternity of 
atoms and their fortuitous concourse to make a 
world; and all existing notions of religion and vir- 
tue it represents as mere chimeras, or devices of 
imposture and oppression. 

‘There was no more progress to be made in that 


ROUSSEAU. 329 


direction. The goal, or rather the bottom, had 
been reached ; and it was not the least surprising 
feature of that singular state of public sentiment, 
that Rousseau, a name identified, in the English and 
American mind, with opposition to Christianity, was 
looked upon by great part of France as its blindly 
superstitious advocate. He did not shrink from the 
responsibility of the position, according to what he 
understood its exigencies to be, and took that reli- 
gion under the protection of his great name in letters. 

He protested with that passionate eloquence, to 
which all that read the French language delighted 
to listen, that the majesty of the Scriptures amazed 
him, that the sanctity of the Gospel spoke to his 
heart, that the pompous books of the philosophers 
were little compared to it, that it was an indignity 
and wrong to Jesus to compare him with Socra- 
tes.* He would have Christianity, as a public in- 
stitution, supported for the benefit of religion and 
morality, and had found nothing else which would 
serve so well that end. At the tribunal of feeling 
and taste, Rousseau, in his own fervent manner, 
maintained the claims of Jesus; but he added that 
the Gospel narratives contained much that was in 
his view incredible, that the history of its miracles 
did not command his assent, and that he could not 
rely on them as proofs of the truth and divine au- 
thority of the religion. + Rousseau was as much a 


: Emile, ou del’ Education, Livre iv. (GQuwvres, Tome IX. p. 140, 
Edit. Genéve. 1782.) 
t Ibid, (p. 142, et seq.) 


Vous il: 42 


330 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. 


disciple of Christianity as the English Morgan. 
He approved of much of the doctrine, but denied 
its sovereign authority. It was a remarkable con- 
dition of opinion, when such a degree of esteem 
could attract censure as a superstitious adherence 
and devotion. 

But the century was not to close without one 
more phenomenon in this course of speculation. 
Atheism was still triumphant, but there was want- 
ing an historical theory of the origin of belief. In 
1781, Charles Francis Dupuis, in his “*‘ Memoir upon 
the Origin of the Constellations and upon the Expla- 
nation of Fable by means of Astronomy,’ proposed 
a system, which, thirteen years after, in the midst 
of the reign of terror, he presented in its fully 
elaborated form, in his great work, entitled “On 
the Origin of All Forms of Worship.” 

In this treatise he undertook “ to analyse all re- 
ligions by means of astronomy and_ physics.” * 
‘There is nothing,” he says, in the introduction to 
his work, “ but the universe itself, capable of corres- 
ponding to the immense idea, which the name of 
God ought to convey.” And again; ‘It is to the 
universe collectively taken, and to its several parts, 
that originally and generally men have attached the 
idea of the Divinity.” ‘This being so, the first 
method of explanation of theology, and that most 
generally to be applied, is to refer the ancient 
fictions respecting the Divinity to the current of 


* Origine de tous les Cultes, Tome III. p. iii. 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. oot 


natural causes. ‘The gods being but another name 
for nature itself, the history of the gods can be no 
other than that of nature ; and, since nature has no 
other history than her phenomena, the history of 
the gods will be that of the phenomena of nature 
allegorically expressed. This conclusion, which | 
regard as true beyond controversy, has naturally 
conducted me to the true method of exposition, 
which, notwithstanding the difficulties it presents, 
is yet the only one which can reasonably be ad- 
mitted.” * 

The foundation thus laid, he proceeds to erect 
his edifice. 

‘‘T try my method first,” he says, “upon the 
great poems, whose fragments compose the con- 
fused mass of Egyptian and Greek mythology. 
The principal of these are the legends of the labors 
of Hercules, Theseus, and Jason, the voyages and 
travels of Bacchus, Osiris, and Isis, which all are 
solar or lunar poems, of which the Sun and Moon 
are the heroes, and heaven the theatre. I then 
seek to recognise the Sun under other forms and 
names, such as those of Ammon, Pan, Apis, Om- 
phis, Mnevis, Mithra, Thor; in general, under all 
borrowed forms, as of the Ram, the Goat, the Ox. I 
next detect the same sun under a form of more ele- 
eance, invested with all the graces of youth, under 
the names of Apollo, of Adonis, of Horus, of Atys ; 
next, decrepid through the passage of time, he 


* Origine, &c. Tom. I. p. x. 


a02 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. 


wears the beard of old age, in the characters of 
Serapis, of Esculapius, of Pluto ; and then he winds 
himself into the mysterious Serpent, the astrono- 
mical sign that precedes the winter. I likewise 
investigate the origin of the worship of animals, of 
plants and of other sacred symbols, and that of 
hieroglyphical writing. 

‘¢ After this essay, which by its success, warrants 
the correctness of my method, I penetrate into the 
sanctuary of the priests, and I withdraw the veil, 
beneath which they concealed their mysteries. 
Here I present a thorough treatise upon mysteries 
in general, and another equally complete upon 
the Christian religion in particular. 

‘“‘’The former of these two treatises exhibits the 
origin of mysteries, their different classes, and a 
summary of all which relates to the forms of initia- 
tion, to their ceremonies, and to the sacerdotal 
functions. In its second part will be found a phil- 
osophical investigation of mysteries regarded in 
their relations to politics and morals. In the third 
is given a detailed explanation of the representa- 
tions drawn from astronomy and physics, employed 
in them, and of that theory of spirit as distinct 
from matter, which was introduced into the scheme 
as a necessary consequence of the hyper-cosmic 
[that is, the supernatural] ideas, which spiritualists 
attached to these forms. 

‘‘'The second treatise, devoted entirely to an ex- 
amination of the religious system of Christians, is 
likewise divided into three parts. ‘The first contains 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. by 


an explanation of the sacred fable of the introduc- 
tion of evil into the world, by the famous Serpent 
of the Hesperides, who deluded Eve, and thus 
rendered necessary the intervention of a Redeemer 
for the regeneration of ruined nature. ‘This fable 
is found in the second chapter of the Hebrew 
cosmogony, known under the name of Genesis. 

‘‘'The second part treats of the Redeemer, of his 
birth, death, and resurrection, and presents a com- 
bination of all the traits which are common to him 
with Mithra, Adonis, Horus, Atys, Osiris, &c., and 
which prove to demonstration, that the Redeemer, 
designated under the name of Christ by Christians, 
is no other than the sun, or the divinity adored by 
all nations, under so many different forms and 
names. 

“The third part, much more abstract than the first 
two, contains an explanation of the famous ‘Trinity 
of Christians, or of the triple unity known under 
the name of Father, Son, and Spirit.* 

This is the outline of a scheme, im announcing 
which he congratulates himself that he has recov- 
ered “the clue to religious hnowledge, that had been 
lost for many ages,” and that he has “ cast the anchor 
of truth into the midst of the ocean of time.” t Un- 
der the hand of this laborious devotee of natural 
science, the dreams of a poetical antiquity are con- 
verted into problems in physics; the wild creations 
of fanciful, feeling, and uninstructed minds become 


* Origine, &c. Tom. IJ, p. xiii. t Ibid. p. xvi. 


354 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. 


observations on the precession of the equinoxes. 
We hear a great deal said, and perhaps not too 
much, of the learned and irrelevant verboseness of 
divines. Is there no word of similar animadver- 
sion for the author of three thick and closely printed 
quarto volumes, crowded with the most recondite 
erudition, expended on the illustration of such a 
theme as this? 

Our particular business, however, is with the ap- 
plication of the theory to Christianity, in approach- 
ing which the author, while he could not but feel 
that it was the only practically important, seems 
also to have felt that, since Christianity appeared 
in an historical age, it was the peculiarly difficult 
part of his work. “I own,” he says, “that, if 
there is a religion, which might be esteemed proof 
against the analysis we have undertaken to present 
of the forms of worship by means of astronomy 
and physics, and to be incapable of being confounded 
with the others, from which it has always assumed 
to separate itself, it is the religion of Christians.” * 
The governing idea in this portion of his work 
(in which, with the scanty materials that can in any 
way be pressed into such a service, he labors the argu- 
ment, as best he may, through only one hundred 
and fifty pages, of some two thousand composing 
the whole treatise, ) is announced in its first chapter.t 

‘<A just apprehension,” he says, “‘of the mysteries 
of that Mithriac [or Persian] worship, known to us 


* Origine, &c., Tome III. p. iii. t Ibid. p. 5. 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. 335 


under the name of the religion of Christ, depends 
essentially on the interpretation of the sacred alle- 
gories of the religion of Zoroaster, adopted by the 
Jews into their cosmogony. ‘The theological ideas 
of Christians are intimately allied with those of the 
Jews, and the whole Christian religion rests upon 
the allegory in the second chapter of Genesis.* 
The incarnation of Christ became necessary only 
to repair the evil introduced into the world by the 
Serpent who beguiled the first woman and man, 
persuading them to eat of the fruit of the famous 
tree of good and evil. ‘The existence of the Re- 
deemer Christ cannot be admitted as an historical 
fact, except so far as the conversation of the ser- 
pent with the woman, and the introduction of evil 
by that means, are also regarded in that light. 
‘Tf, on the other hand, that pretended transaction 
is only an allegory, the mission and redemption of 
Christ too are divested of all character of reality. 
The two doctrines do not admit of being separated. 
The nature of the first event necessarily determines 
that of the second. ..... If the first event was real 
only in a certain point of view, the second will be 
real only in the same sense. We have nothing to 
do, then, but to inquire in what respect the first was 
real, and whether it ought to be viewed as an his- 
torical fact, or a fact in natural philosophy exhibited 
under a veil of allegory.” And then he goes on 
to argue through the chapter, with great wealth of 


* He means the third chapter; so carelessly did he refer. 


336 ALLEGORICAL ‘THEORY. 


learning, that the passage in Genesis, in its original 
significance, was but an allegory, representing the 
gloomy and cheerless period of the year when the 
sun passes into the signs Libra and Scorpio, Scorpio 
being the Serpent, and Libra, or the Scales, being 
anciently represented by the figure of a woman 
holding them uplifted. “It is this annual phenom- 
enon,” says he, ‘¢of the approach of cold in autumn 
in northern latitudes, which originated the fable 
of evil introduced into the world by the Serpent ; 
and, the history of the fall being thus reduced to 
allegory, the history of redemption, founded upon 
it, is deprived of its basis as a matter of fact.” * 
We have here then another form of objection to 
Christianity, founded on a supposed connexion, of 
a particular nature, between the New Testament 
and the Old, and falling to the ground, if, in the 
alleged particular, it should appear that that con- 
nexion was misconceived. The ground which this 
writer takes is not simply, that there was no place 
for redemption, and that a divine interposition for 
that purpose is incredible unless there were previous 
sin and consequent danger and suffering to redeem 
from, —in which view all Christians would agree 
with him, — but it is, that, unless the account of 
the woman’s being seduced by the Serpent to eat 
the apple be true in a strictly literal sense, then the 
mission of Jesus is not an historical truth; and that 
the former is not literally true, because, on the con- 


* Origine, &c., Tome III, p, 35. 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. 337 


trary, the account was only meant to describe, as 
he goes on to argue, a well known annual physical 
phenomenon. But this whole subject of the sense 
and authority of different portions of the Old Tes- 
tament, and of the dependence of the New upon it, 
I have proposed to reserve ; and accordingly I have 
here only to add the remark (already perhaps suffi- 
ciently implied), that if the account of the fall of 
man, commonly so called, expressed allegorically, 
and not literally, that the race was involved in sin, 
—or even, still further, if the fact were that the 
race was involved in sin, though it had not been 
expressed in the Old Testament at all, — in either 
case the race would stand in need of a redeemer ; 
so that the reasoning of Dupuis would fail, unless 
he could show, — which he has made no attempt to 
do, by any criticism of the language of the New 
Testament, — that the New Testament had both 
assumed the fact of the literal exactness of the 
passage in question, and, further, had referred to 
the passage as detailing the specific and sole cause 
of the Gospel provisions for redemption. 

The second chapter of that part of this treatise 
which is devoted to Christianity, is introduced as 
follows; ‘“*We have seen that the history of the 
pretended fall of man, which upholds the whole 
religious system of Christians, or the work of the 
mission of Christ, is pure allegory. We thence 
reasonably conclude, that the reparation of an alle- 
gorical fault can itself be only allegorical. We are 
about to prove that it is so, and that the restorer is 

Vor. IL. 43 


338 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. 


that physical agent, to which it belongs to repair 
physical disorder, and which unites in itself all the 
mysterious attributes of Christ, which accord only 
with its properties, and of which it alone affords a 
solution. We have already intimated that this re- 
storer is the Sun, which in spring restores to the 
day its empire over the darkness, which the serpent 
of autumn had spread over the earth. It is the 
sun, that clothes our fields again with the adorn- 
ments, of which the frosts of winter had despoiled 
them. Let us see whether Christ, that light, as the 
evangelist John says, ‘which enlighteneth every man 
that cometh into the world,’ has all the attributes 
with which a mystical astrology endowed the sun 
which it deified, and that particularly at the two 
principal eras of his life, namely, his incarnation and 
his resurrection.” * And then he proceeds through 
the chapter, running a sort of poetical analogy, 
—a merely figurative correspondence, the easiest 
thing possible to invent, — between circumstances 
of the advent and resurrection of Jesus on the 
one hand, and, on the other, certain physical phe- 
nomena and (what he regards as having been de- 
signed to represent the same) certain qualities and 
acts which heathen antiquity ascribed to the objects 
of its idolatrous reverence. Jesus is one of the 
impersonations of the Sun, of which Bacchus, 
Adonis, Mithra, and the rest, were others. Jesus 
of Nazareth, rising from the grave, means the sun 


* Origine, &c., Tome III., pp, 37, 38. 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. 339 


breaking forth in his renovating glory at the vernal 
equinox. 

What is to be said of an argument like this, the 
force of which would not be aided in the least by 
following it into its abstruse particulars ? What more 
admits of being said, than what is comprehended 
in a single sentence; namely, that the hypothesis 
is all a mere defiance of historical truth. Here is 
a theorist, who, with infinite industry and contri- 
vance, labors to weave a scrap that will hold to- 
gether, out of the short untwisted threads of frag- 
ments of the Orphic hymns, and such like, to be put 
in the place of the ample, substantial, historical 
warp and woof of the times of the first Czsars. 
If the question were of some system proceeding 
from a fabulous time, from some unexplored gloom 
of the unrecorded ages, then there would be place for 
learned conjecture in what fantastic operations of 
the wayward mind of man it might have had its 
origin. But the history of Jesus does not come to 
us from the infancy of the world, in the scarcely 
articulate language of its early fables. It is a plain 
record from an historical age; an age, in which 
men read and wrote, and had ceased to imagine 
agencies and attributes into persons, whatever they 
might have done in earlier times. And if there 1s 
any meaning in language, they who have transmitted 
it to us, whatever else we may think of them, cer- 
tainly took Jesus, and knew that they rightly took 
him, for a person, and not for a creation of their 
own or of other people’s poetry or philosophy. 


340 THE ZODIAC OF DENDERAH. 


Nor, impossible as it would seem to be to avoid 
in any way taking their word thus far, are we com- 
pelled to depend for this on their word alone. For 
this we have Pagan evidence, enough, had we no 
other, to put the question entirely at rest, or rather 
to forbid a reasonable man to move the question. 
There is the great historian Tacitus, who, seventy 
years after the crucifixion of Jesus, records that 
event, with some particularity of statement as to 
the government under which it took place. There 
is the Emperor Julian, who wrote expressly and 
largely against Christianity in the fourth century, 
Porphyry in the third, Celsus in the second, who 
all recognised the historical fact of the life and la- 
bors of Jesus, near as it was to their time, in a way 
to leave no more doubt of its reality, than it would 
be possible to entertain of the real and not merely 
supposititious existence of Plutarch or of Virgil, of 
Augustus or of Nero. The sphere, I repeat it, 
for a philosophical analysis converting history into 
fable, is that of periods whence no records have 
come. ‘There may also well be doubt respecting 
other matters belonging to an historical age, but 
respecting the naked fact of the existence of a per- 
son who has operated efficiently on opinion and 
society, there can scarcely be any; certainly not, 
under such circumstances as accompany the fact 
under our notice. 

On the remaining chapter of this part of the 
treatise, in which the writer undertakes to trace the 
doctrine of a Trinity in Unity in the godhead to 


CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. 341 


Pagan representations of physical phenomena, | 
have no occasion to remark. But before I pass 
from the consideration of his works, it may not be 
amiss, by way of a specimen of the remoteness of 
the sources, to which the ingenuity of French unbe- 
lief in the last century was wont to have recourse, 
to say a word upon a little treatise of his, of much 
less pretension.* During the French military expe- 
dition to Egypt in 1799, the temple of Denderah 
was visited, and in the ceiling of one of its apart- 
ments was observed a representation of the signs 
of the Zodiac on stone. Taking for granted that 
it exhibited the relations of the signs at the time 
when it was sculptured, the French astronomers 
set themselves to determine how distant that time 
was. 

Assuming from certain data (which it would be 
tedious to describe) exhibited by itself, that the 
place of the solstices, at the time when it was 
carved, was in certain signs, Dupuis calculated, that, 
in order for them to recede to their present place, 
no less than thirteen thousand years were necessary ; 
in other words, that there were civilization, science, 
and art in Egypt thirteen thousand years ago, or 
seven thousand years before the creation of man 
according to the Mosaic chronology. Lalande, how- 
ever, a much higher name in astronomy, found rea- 
son to ascribe to it an antiquity of only thirteen hun- 
dred years before the Christian era, or a little later 


* His “ Memoir upon the Zodiac of Denderah”’ appeared first in the 
** Revue Philosophique ”’ for May, 1806, and was reprinted, in 1822, as an 
Appendix to an abridgement of his great work. 


342 - ALLEGORICAL THEORY. 


than the time of Moses; while Biot was of opinion 
that it belonged to a period six hundred years later 
than this, and other conclusions in distinguished 
quarters were equally inconsistent with the object 
of Dupuis. More recently M. Champollion, apply- 
ing his newly-discovered method to the decyphering 
of an inscription upon the temple, has concluded 
that that structure, and of course the Zodiac which 
made part of it, is of no older date than the 
time of the Roman emperors; a conclusion which 
I believe is now generally acquiesced in by the 
scientific world. * 

The voluminous composition of Dupuis was of 
a character to prevent its coming into extensive 
circulation ; but its scheme had already been adopt- 
ed from the elementary treatise I first mentioned, 
into a work of different construction, and destined 
to obtain an extraordinary popularity, the ‘“ Ruins, 
or Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires,” by 
Count Volney. Following what he arranges as 
probable steps of the progress of the human mind 
in shaping its idea of a God, Volney traces it from 
the rudest, unguided action of intelligence, to a 
worship, first, of the elements and of the physical 
powers of nature ; secondly, of the stars; thirdly, of 
sensible symbols, as animals ; fourthly, of two princi- 
ples, — the scheme of Dualism; fifthly, to the system 
of a future life ; sixthly, to the worship of the uni- 
verse, under various emblems; seventhly, to that of 


* For an account of the speculations on this subject, see Dumersan’s 
Notice sur le Zodiaque de Dendéra, Paris, 1825. 


VOLNEY. 343 


the soul of the world, or the element of fire; 
eighthly, to that of an invisible personal Creator. 
Passing hastily by the religion of Moses, which in 
a few periods he represents as of Egyptian origin, he 
comes to that of Christ, which he calls an “ allegori- 
cal worship of the Sun under the cabalistical names 
of Chris-en or Christ, and Yesus or Jesus.” * 

In his off-hand representations I find no occasion 
for any thing to be added to what was said upon 
the more elaborate exposition of Dupuis; except 
that it astonishes one to find what use is made, by 
such a writer, of arguments from mythology. For 
instance, because the Latin and Greek words 
which signify God, are said to have been derived 
from a Greek verb+ meaning to wander, and 
equivalent to another verb{ from which is de- 
rived planet, or wandering star, he infers that the 
worship of the Greeks, when their language was 
framed, was directed to these heavenly bodies ; — a 
thing very likely in itself, but scarcely the more 
likely on account of that verbal coincidence. § And 
ereat ingenuity is exerted upon the word Christ, as 
if it had something to do with the Chrishna of the 
Hindoos, or even with the Cheres, signifying sun, 
of the Hebrews, and upon the name Jesus as being 
formed from Yes, which three letters, by their nu- 
merical value, represent the number six hundred and 
eight, one of the solar periods ;— when it seems 


* Ruins, &c. chap. 22, § 18. (p. 153, Edit. Boston, 1833.) 
t Osiv. } Thavay. § Ruins, &c. p. 147. 


344 PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS CONTRADICTIONS. 


impossible to suppose, that Volney should not have 
known that there was no room for mystery and no 
call for investigation in the case; that Jesus had 
always been, and continued in the Saviour’s time, a 
proper name in common use among the Jews, and 
that Christ was but a Greek adjective signify- 
ing the anowmted, and applied to Jesus because he 
was understood to be the Messiah, that is, the 
anointed with power, of which Hebrew word it was 
only the Greek translation. There can be no more 
unprofitable trifling than is seen in other specimens, 
in this short work, of this same kind of cabbalism; 
nor, unless we suppose involuntary mistake, which 
in such plain cases is scarcely credible, can any 
thing be more flagrantly disingenuous than such 
devices, which from their learned air are so well 
fitted to impose on readers unpractised in such 
studies. 

A second argument, which, presented in an ex- 
ceedingly vivid and imposing shape, runs through 
that part of the work of Volney that relates to 
Christianity, and without doubt does far more exe- 
cution than the other, is drawn from the great 
variety of religious opinions entertained, apparently 
with equal confidence, in different times and coun- 
tries, and constituting, when taken into one view, 
what the writer calls his problem of religious contra- 
dictions. He gives it effect by describing a con- 
course of devotees of different creeds, defending 
each his own faith against the rest, in the use of 
similar topics of recommendation, condemnation, 


VOLNEY, 345 


and proof. Divested of its apparatus of dramatic 
machinery, the argument is simply the same which 
was treated in my last Lecture, in a consideration of 
the attempt made by Gibbon, Hume, and others, to 
invalidate the credit of the Christian miracles by 
reference to other cases of a claim to miraculous 
operation. 

I could not add anything, with advantage, to the 
views then presented upon that head; and on a 
mind to which those views recommended them- 
selves as just, this part of the reasoning of Volney 
can make no impression. We think, for reasons 
that have been assigned, that a direct revelation of 
religious truth from God to man, is an antecedently 
probable thing. We own it also for probable, that 
attempts at religious imposture will be made ; for 
it is easy to point to motives which may prompt 
such attempts. If a revelation is made, it must be 
authenticated by a miraculous agency of the maker ; 
we know of no other way. Because, if made, it 
must be thus authenticated, every pretence to it, in 
order to succeed, must be accompanied by a pre- 
tence of such authentication. We expect miracles, 
then, just as much as we expect revelation; and 
we look for the pretence of miracles, just as much 
as we look for fraudulent pretensions to revela- 
tion. ‘This being so, their having been falsely pre- 
tended in one case, does not in the least induce us 
to conclude that they cannot have been truly alleged 
in another. ‘Explain yourself,” we may say to the 
opponent, “as to this summary reasoning. Make 

Vou. Il. 44 


346 OBJECTION FROM POLITICAL ABUSES. 


out your syllogism. Does it stand thus? ‘Where 
evidence to a fact is met by the allegation of another 
inconsistent fact, that evidence is invalidated ; the 
Christian evidence is thus contradicted; therefore 
Christianity is a fable.” We deny the major pro- 
position. We insist that it is on no such principle 
that the common investigations of life proceed, nor, 
when thus nakedly stated, will any sensible man 
entertain it fora moment. There is good evidence, 
and there is bad. There is true witness, and there 
is false. The false, to secure its objects, will, of 
course, as far as possible, counterfeit the true ; and 
in religion, as in other things, the business of the 
reasonable mind of man is not to dismiss them both 
for the fault of one, but to inquire and decide 
which bears the one character, and which the other. 

One topic more was dwelt upon with great effect 
by Volney in his “ Ruins,” as well as by the whole 
class of writers who have been the subject of this 
evening’s Lecture. It is of the nature of an appeal 
to feeling, and loses or gains efficiency by a change 
of circumstances which have only an adventitious 
connexion with the Christian faith. The English 
infidels argued the question of its claim to credit 
substantially on its merits. ‘They treated it as an 
independent question, concerning which some truth 
was to be predicated, apart from any accidental 
relations; and their treatment of it accordingly 
was comparatively calm and logical. ‘The French 
scholars, on the contrary, smarting under the sense 
of enormous political abuses, which the union of 


VOLNEY. 347 


church and state appeared to them one powerful 
instrument for upholding, easily came to regard the 
object of all religions as identical, — namely, that 
of political oppression. ‘This is expressly Volney’s 
ultimate solution of the existence of them, one 
and all.* 

There is no dealing with this statement as an 
argument. It is none; though, under the fit cir- 
cumstances, it has great power for popular effect, 
and the just retribution of the unnatural union 
between religious and secular institutions is, that, 
as soon as it begins to prosecute the bad objects 
for which it had been cemented, it will bring into 
disesteem and danger the religion which it had de- 
signed to employ in such an unworthy service. A 
view to political advantages may be, in general, a 
very likely motive to prompt an attempt at religious 
imposture. But (not to urge how irreconcilable the 
supposition of such a motive is with the doctrine 
and conduct of the founders of Christianity) the 
mere imputation of it has no force to prove an ac- 
tual imposture, nor, could an actual imposture in any 
case be shown, would it remain of much practical 
consequence to observe what was the design that 
impelled it. In countries where Christianity is 
properly independent of political institutions, it hap- 
pily relieves itself from all accidental prejudice arising 
from this source. In France itself, the opposition 
to it, if not convinced or even conciliated, was 


* Ruins, &c. chaps. 8, 15, 18, 24, (pp. 38, 71, 79, 170.) 


348 OBJECTION FROM POLITICAL ABUSES. 


quieted, when the political odium was removed. 
Abundance of infidelity remained, and yet remains, 
in France. ‘The writings of Voltaire, in particular, 
made an impression, not soon to be effaced, on the 
minds of that lively, and, in respect to this subject, 
uninstructed nation. But it ceased to be rabid 
against religion, as soon as it ceased to look at it 
under a sense of injustice, thus proving how 
merely incidental to the subject, and destitute of 
intrinsic applicability, were appeals, which, in 
different times, had been urged upon the ‘public 
mind with a success beyond what mere argument 
would have promised. 

The subject of my next Lecture will be the 
writings of Thomas Paine. 


LECTURE XXII. 


OBJECTIONS OF THOMAS PAINE. 


In passing to the writings of Paine from those 
of the French infidels of the last century, we 
scarcely go back to England again. His name 
and his influence were cosmopolitan. He belonged 
not more to his native country, than to America and 
to France. He was born in the year 1737, in the 
county of Norfolk in England, and, after receiving a 
scanty education at a grammar school in his native 
place, undertook to push his fortune in trade. A 
pamphlet upon a local subject, in the year 1773, was 
the means of introducing him to the acquaintance 
of Dr. Franklin, who, perceiving his abilities, and 
his attachment to liberal views in politics, advised 
him to emigrate to this country. He accordingly 
established himself in Philadelphia in the following 
year as the editor of a magazine, where he pres- 
ently distinguished himself by the publication of 
the famous pamphlet, entitled « Common Sense,” 


350 OBJECTIONS OF 


recommending the separation of the colonies from 
Great Britain. ‘This work gave him great popu- 
larity, and occasioned his appointment to the re- 
sponsible post of Clerk to the Committee of Con- 
gress for Foreign Affairs. From this office he was 
dismissed after three or four years’ service, in con- 
sequence of some disclosures which were inter- 
preted as a violation of official confidence. He 
remained in America till four years after the peace, 
when he returned to his native country (taking 
France in his way), with a view to the prosecution 
of a scheme connected with some mechanical in- 
vention. While in England at this time, he wrote 
his “‘ Rights of Man,” in reply to Burke’s “ Re- 
flections on the French Revolution”; and, soon 
after the publication of the second part of that work, 
was chosen a member of the National Convention 
of France, in which body he took his seat in Sep- 
tember, 1792. On the trial of the King, he voted 
against a sentence of death; and, incurring by 
that course the ill-will of the party who carried the 
measure, was first expelled from the Convention, 
and soon after arrested and imprisoned. On the 
fall of Robespierre, he was released, having escaped 
the guillotine by mere accident. He remained till 
1802 in France, and then embarked again for this 
country, where he ended his days seven years after- 
ward, in the city of New York. 

It was just before his imprisonment in France 
that Paine finished the first part of his treatise, 
entitled “‘ The Age of Reason, being an Investiga- 


THOMAS PAINE, 351 


tion of True and Fabulous Theology,” which he 
committed to his friend, Mr. Joel Barlow, then in 
Paris, for publication. ‘The second part was pub- 
lished by himself, immediately after his discharge, 
in 1795. The doctrine of this treatise differs from 
that of the French works most in vogue at the 
time. It is not atheism, but deism. Says Paine, 
in the preface to the First Part, ‘1 believe in one 
God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond 
this life. I believe the equality of man, and I be- 
lieve that religious duties consist in doing justice, 
loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow- 
creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed 
that I believe many other things in addition to these, 
I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the 
things I do not believe, and my reasons for not be- 
lieving them. I do not believe in the creed pro- 
fessed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, 
by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by 
the Protestant church, nor by any church that | 
know of. My own mind is my own church. All 
national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, 
Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than 
human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave 
mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” * 

As Voltaire had been the first to urge the argu- 
ment against Christianity in a style and with a 
selection of topics adapted to the popular mind, so 
Paine was the first to treat it in this manner for 


* Theological Works of Thomas Paine, pp. 31, 32. (Edit. Lond. 1824.) 


352 OBJECTIONS OF 


English readers. To learning he not only made 
no pretension, but he spoke of it with contempt,* 
with the exception of physical science, in which 
however his own attainments were scarcely greater 
than in other departments of knowledge. But he 
wrote his native language with great facility, pre- 
cision, perspicuity, and force. He urged his argu- 
ments with that appearance of confidence in them 
on his own part, and of conscious triumph, which 
pass for much with a large class of readers; and 
with the friends of liberal institutions everywhere, 
especially in this country, which he had served 
in so critical a juncture of its affairs, gratitude 
for his political services gave him an influence, 
which became an important element of both 
the curency and the success of his writings on 
religion. | 

With the exception of one topic, which I shall 
presently name, the two parts of the “ Age of 
Reason ” of Paine, were, | think, made up from 
the writings of Voltaire. It is true that arguments 
are here repeated which have been before in the 
use of so many other writers, that they may prop- 
erly be called the common places of infidelity. 
But the whole style of presenting them is distinctly 
that of the French arch-wit;— the same easy as- 


* He was capable of such an argument, as the following against the 
Hebrew origin of the book of Job. ‘* The astronomical names, Pleiades, 
Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek, and not Hebrew, names; ..... the 
Jews had no translation of those names into their own language, but adopt- 
ed the names as they found them in the poem.” Theological Works, p. 
107. Of course, he supposed those names to be found in the Hebrew text. 


THOMAS PAINE. 353 


sumption of victory ; the same exaggeration of diffi- 
culties on one side, and blindness to them on the 
other; the same libertine grossness. 

A superficial reader of the “Age of Reason” 
would infer that its author had a remarkable ac- 
quaintance with the Bible, so numerous and particu- 
lar are its scriptural references. But occasional mis- 
takes show that he could not have known so much 
in this way, as he appears to have done, without 
knowing much more. For instance, he argues 
quite formally, that, “if, according to Matthew, the 
eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a moun- 
tain by his own appointment, Luke and John must 
have been two of that eleven” ;* when every 
tolerably careful reader of the New Testament 
knows that Luke was not an apostle. And that this 
was not a mere accident, appears from his repetition 
of the same thing in other places, and that too 
with the addition of the name of Mark, of whom 
the same observation holds good. + And he speaks 
of “the whole space of time, from the crucifixion 
to what is called the ascension,” being “ but a few 
days, apparently not more than three or four,” t 
when the express statement of the history is, that 
Jesus ‘showed himself alive after his passion by 
many infallible proofs, being seen of his apostles 
forty days.””§ Such examples occur in the Second 
Part, after, as he says in the introduction to it, he 
had furnished himself with a Bible and a Testament, 


* Theological Works, p. 136. t Ibid. pp. 182, 139. 
} Ibid. p. 138. § Acts. i. 3. 
Vor. II. 45 


354 DIVINE CARE FOR MANKIND. 


neither of which, he adds, he had possessed or 
could procure, while writing the former Part. This 
extensive and rather exact acquaintance with many 
particulars, taken in connexion with the errors in 
relation to others more likely to be known, natu- 
rally suggests the inference of its being obtained 
at second-hand ; and the whole complexion of the 
argument is so strikingly that of Voltaire, as to 
leave little room for doubt respecting the original to 
which it is to be referred. 

I intimated just now, that there was but one 
topic, in respect to which the argument of Paine 
could advance any pretension to originality. ‘ After 
I had made myself,” he says, “master of the use 
of the globes and of the orrery, and conceived an 
idea of the infinity of space, and the eternal divisi- 
bility of matter, and obtained, at least, a general 
knowledge of what is called natural philosophy, I 
began to compare, or, as I have before said, to con- 
front the eternal evidence those things afford with 
the Christian system of faith.” * He then goes on 
to speak of the system of the material universe, as 
modern philosophy has ascertained it, consisting of 
unnumbered worlds, in which, to use his language, 
our earth, compared ‘“ with the immensity of space 
in which it is suspended, ..... is infinitely less, in 
proportion, than the smallest grain of sand is to the 
size of the world, or the finest particle of dew to 
the whole ocean;’’? and he asks in conclusion, 


* Theological Works, p. 61. 


THOMAS PAINE. 355 


‘‘ Whence could arise the solitary and strange con- 
ceit, that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds 
equally dependent on his protection, should quit the 
care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, 
because, they say, one man and one woman had 
eaten an apple? And, on the other hand, are we 
to suppose that every world in the boundless creation 
had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a redeemer ? 
In this case, the person, who is irreverently called 
the son of God, and sometimes God himself, would 
have nothing else to do than to travel from world 
to world, in an endless succession of death, with 
scarcely a momentary interval of life.” * 

An analysis of this argument, it will be observed, 
reduces it into three parts. 

In the first place, it condemns the absurdity of 
supposing, that such extraordinary provision should 
be made for the reparation of a mischief originating 
in so slight a cause as the specified act of dis- 
obedience on the part of the first parents of the 
human race. ‘The obvious reply to this is, that, 
supposing an evil of great magnitude to have ex- 
isted, whether its origin was of one kind or another, 
it was worthy of the divine wisdom and benevo- 
lence to make sufficient provision for its cure, what- 
ever that sufficient provision might be. The argu- 
ment then does not lie against the necessity and 
fitness of the Christian revelation, — which was 
justified by the mere existence of moral evil, how- 


* Theological Works, p. 66. 


356 DIVINE CARE FOR MANKIND. 


ever caused, — but against the reasonableness of a 
certain interpretation of a passage in the Old 
Testament. ‘Thus the question raised, — the same 
with that presented in the writings of Dupuis, as 
was remarked in my last Lecture, — is seen to refer 
itself to that important class of questions, of which 
I am presently to speak, relating to the exposition 
‘of the Old Testament, and its connexion with the 
New. : 

Secondly ; the argument is, How incredible that 
the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally 
dependent on his protection, should quit the care 
of all the rest, and come to die in our world. J am 
one of those, for whom this argument has no force 
whatever, inasmuch as we do not admit the correct- 
ness of the representation of fact, on which it is 
founded. We understand the sense of the New 
Testament to be, not that it was the Almighty who 
thus appeared upon our earth, but a good Being 
commissioned by him in his infinite benevolence. 
If our interpretation be correct, there is no more to 
be said upon the point. Believing it to be correct, 
I am incapable of doing justice to the argument, 
which they who entertain a different opinion, — 
who admit in this case the premises of Paine, — 
would use to set aside his conclusion. ‘They would 
say, that we could not reasonably expect to be in- 
formed respecting the methods of the divine moral 
government in other worlds, which, whatever they 
may be, will be, here and elsewhere, suited to their 
end; and that our ignorance concerning them can- 


THOMAS PAINE. 357 


not reasonably create any distrust in relation to 
what is revealed to us of its processes in this 
world, respecting which we are informed. And they 
would add, that it may be, for aught that we know, 
that the benefits of the redemption, wrought in 
this world, may be extended to the inhabitants of 
other planets, and even to other orders of being; 
and that, insignificant, when judged by a mere ma- 
terial standard, as this earth may seem, we are in 
no degree qualified judges of the fitness of the 
choice of a scene for so momentous a transaction. 

But, in its remaining aspect, the argument de- 
mands the attention of all Christians alike. Is it 
credible, it is virtually asked, that the Almighty 
Creator and Ruler of this vast universe, the mys- 
terious, sublime Intelligence, in whom all things live 
and move and are, should, amidst the cares of his 
boundless empire, condescend to concern himself 
for the condition of a race of feeble creatures on 
this floating atom we call earth, so as, when they 
had disobeyed him and harmed themselves, to put 
forth manifestly his resistless power in provisions 
for their recovery and welfare ? 

To this inquiry I confidently answer, Yes; and 
that to doubt it, is to entertain merely false and 
base ideas of his unrivalled greatness. ‘To sup- 
pose that God will not condescend, as we call it, 
to any office of benevolence to his meanest creature, 
is only to introduce a foreign and uncongenial ele- 
ment into the grand idea. Our notion that any 
thing little is unworthy of the care of greatness, 


358 DIVINE CARE FOR MANKIND. 


is derived not from the greatness of great men, but, 
on the contrary, from the imperfection and limita- 
tions of those attributes which make them great. 
Men are, at the best, so partially endowed, that no 
one can do more than a portion of what he would. 
Every man must select a part of what invites his 
attention, and leave the rest. In the natural dis- 
tribution, those of more feeble capacity apply them- 
selves to the meaner tasks; those of better gifts, to 
the more elevated; and accordingly the duties, 
which, while more responsibly employed themselves, 
they leave to their inferiors, come to be regarded 
as something beneath their dignity. Were there 
any man equal to what we call the higher and lower 
tasks at once, he would be far greater and more 
admirable than the agent in either portion. 

What no man can be, that God is. He alone can 
take care of the great, without disregarding the 
little. ‘That he can do so, is his distinctive glory ; 
nor is it so much matter for our reverent adoration, 
that he has set the immeasurably distant systems in 
their spheres, as that, while he watches and con- 
trols the vast complication of activity in all, he is 
not diverted from observing and guiding the path 
of the humblest human traveller through his pil- 
grimage of seventy years. No; the fact that God 
made and is governing so vast a world, is nothing 
to make me distrust his readiness to exercise a 
minute and watchful providence over the affairs of 
the dwellers on this exceedingly minute division of 
it. Had he manifested less power, I should much 


THOMAS PAINE. 359 


more reasonably distrust his exercise of such a pro- 
vidence. Because he has done the one, — because 
he has shown himself the author of works so vari- 
ous, so vast, so admirable, —I am satisfied that he 
is able, without distraction, to do the other ; to take 
abundant care, as different circumstances may re- 
quire, of the welfare and advancement of every race 
and every being throughout his universe, capable 
of discipline and of progress. 

A point much urged by Paine, as well as by 
other writers, both ancient and modern, is the exis- 
tence of discrepancies in the evangelical narrative. 
Now upon this it is obvious to observe, that circum- 
stantial difference along with essential agreement 
is one of the prominent conditions of credible tes- 
timony. ‘l'ake ten men who yesterday were pres- 
ent at the same transaction, and you shall find that 
while the substantial parts of it will be related by all 
alike, no two of them will agree upon every minute 
particular, respecting which they may be questioned. 
So well understood is this, that, if there should be 
found a punctilious agreement in respect to. sub- 
ordinate matters, it would unavoidably suggest the 
idea of concert and conspiracy; the testimony, in- 
stead of being confirmed, would be discredited by 
such a perfect consonance. Paine himself does not 
hesitate to admit this; for he says, that ‘“ the con- 
tradictions in the books of the New Testament 
demonstrate two things; first, that the writers can- 
not have been eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of 
the matters they relate, or they would have related 


360 DISCREPANCIES IN THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 


them without those contradictions, and consequent- 
ly that the books have not been written by the 
persons called apostles, who are supposed to have 
been witnesses of this kind; secondly, that the 
writers, whoever they were, have not acted in con- 
certed imposition, but each writer, separately and 
individually for himself, and without the knowledge 
of the other. ‘The same evidence that applies to 
prove the one, applies equally to prove both cases ; 
that is, that the books were not written by the 
men called apostles, and also that they are nota 
concerted imposition.” * 

But is it not perfectly safe to say, that to give 
up the idea of concerted imposition, is to abandon 
the ground of imposture in every shape? Certain- 
ly, if there was fraud in the case at all, there was 
conspiracy in fraud. ‘That the supposition of an 
attempt at deception of any kind is utterly untena- 
ble, I trust has been abundantly proved in a former 
part of these remarks; but certainly the supposition 
of such an attempt, is inseparable from the suppo- 
sition of combination and league. How else, ex- 
cept by understanding that they were confederated 
together either to publish the truth or to publish a 
falsehood, is it possible to imagine how the apostles 
came to teach the same doctrine, to tell substantially 
the same story, as they have done, — to portray, 
with consistent lineaments, the unprecedented 
character of their Master? Let any one take up 


* Theological Works, p. 189. 


THOMAS PAINE, 361 


the Gospels with the idea that their authors were 
deceivers, each proceeding on an independent 
scheme of his own, and see what degree of success 
he will have in accommodating the facts to this 
hypothesis. On this author’s own showing, the 
discrepancies alleged refute the supposition of con- 
federacy in imposture ; then, we have perfect con- 
fidence in saying, they refute the supposition of 
imposture of any kind. 

But let us see of what nature these alleged dis- 
crepancies are ; and | will take them in the order 
in which they are brought to view by the writer 
before us. The first instance produced by him 
occurs in the genealogies of our Saviour, at the 
beginning of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. 
I need not recite the particulars of the contents of 
these passages. They are sufficiently familiar to 
my audience. Now I am of opinion that one of 
these can be shown with a high degree of proba- 
bility to be the genealogy of Joseph, the other that 
of Mary ; —the latter being inserted in the Gospel 
of Luke, who wrote particularly for the use of the 
Gentile converts of Greece; the former in that of 
Matthew, who had especially in view the Jewish 
Christians, and might properly adapt himself to the 
ideas of those whose national usages scarcely ad- 
mitted of the recital of the genealogy of a female, 
and many of whom, — entertaining, as we know, 
the opinion that Joseph was the father of Jesus, — 
might fitly be met on their own ground, by the proof 


Von. It: 46 


362 DISCREPANCIES IN THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 


that, even in that case, Jesus was a descendant 
of David. | 

But, passing by a somewhat nice question of 
criticism, — which, were it sufficiently connected 
with our present inquiry, I should prefer to treat at 
large, and with the addition of some thoughts, 
which seem to me material, but which have not, 
that I know, attracted notice, —I would ask atten- 
tion to a brief statement of two considerations. 

First; the credibility of either writer, as an 
original witness to the acts and discourses of Jesus, 
cannot, from the nature of the case, be involved in 
his simply adducing an ancient genealogy, what- 
ever view may in other respects be taken of the 
contents of those lists. It was not, — it could not 
be, —in any such character, that they pretended to 
know who were the remote progenitors of Jesus 
and David, but from the evidence of public or family 
records. 

Secondly; their character as inspired men (in 
any view of their inspiration) is no more concerned 
in the correctness of these genealogical lists, than 
their character as present witnesses. For to suppose 
their knowledge in the case to have been that of 
inspiration, and not of record, is to suppose it to 
have been exactly such as would not at all serve the 
particular purpose for which the genealogies were 
produced. ‘That purpose of course was to establish 
the fact, that Jesus corresponded to the expectation 
entertained of the Messiah, in the particular of 
being the Son of David. But to affirm that fact 


THOMAS PAINE. 363 


on the ground of an inspired knowledge, would 
have been to reverse the necessary order of pro- 
ceeding. ‘Those whom they addressed would have 
replied, ‘The proper way of showing a fact of that 
kind, —a fact which, when shown, is to be one 
means of proving to us the supernatural commission 
of your Master, and consequently your own, — is 
by an appeal to the records. If they do not show 
it, no pretended inspiration of yours will. 

From the necessity of the case, I repeat, — from 
the very nature of what the evangelists were here 
proposing to do, — they must be understood as re- 
ferring to these genealogies, not as the substance of 
knowledge supernaturally communicated to their 
own minds, but as what they found registered in the 
proper documents. ‘These documents, — with what- 
ever other differences, — agreed in declaring Jesus 
to be of the house of David, which was the point 
in question. And in this view of the case, —a 
view, which I see not how any one can gainsay, 
— the question respecting these genealogies, how- 
ever in other respects they may be regarded, is 
shifted from the evangelists to the keepers of the 
records which they recited. ‘The records may be 
inexact, and yet the credit of the evangelists, who 
took them as they were to be had, will be abso- 
lutely unimpeached. 

“The story,” says our author, going on with 
his list of discrepancies, “of the angel announcing 
what the church calls the immaculate conception, 
is not so much as mentioned in the books ascribed 


364 DISCREPANCIES IN THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 


to Mark and John, and is differently related in 
Matthew and Luke.” * 

‘¢'The story is not so much as mentioned in the 
book ascribed to John.” But John, according to 
approved ancient testimonies, wrote with the other 
Gospels before him, and one of his objects was to 
record facts which they had omitted; a statement 
with which the phenomena of his book extremely 
well correspond.t ‘Itis notso much as mentioned 
in the book ascribed to Mark.” But the Gospel of 
Mark is much shorter than either of the others ; by 
necessary consequence not a few things, related by 
them, are by him passed over; and he expressly 
begins his history with the period of our Lord’s 
public ministry. Certainly, it would be an unheard 
of thing, to make it a condition of a writer’s credit, 
that his book should contain every thing embraced 
in some other, treating of the same general subject. 
Omissions, — selections of topics and facts, — are 
not to be tortured into a charge of contradiction ; 
and, when this is considered, a sufficient answer 1s 
supplied to much that has been carelessly said of 
discrepancies in the Gospels. “ ‘The story is differ- 
ently related in Matthew and Luke.” Differently, 
how?’ The word is equivocal, and perhaps was 
chosen for that reason. Not differently, in the 
sense of inconsistently. One fact is in this instance 
related by one evangelist; another, by the other ; the 
appearance of an angel to Joseph, by Matthew ; to 


* Theological Works, p. 131. 
t Lardner’s History of the Apostles, &c., chap. 9, § 7. (Works, Vol. 
III. p. 227.) 


THOMAS PAINE. 365 


Mary, by Luke. But there is no contrariety between 
them. So far from it, there is the most complete 
agreement; and, in a harmonized arrangement of 
the Gospels, they stand together as each other’s 
complement, if I may so say, in the most natural 
and striking sequence. 

The author of the ‘“ Age of Reason” goes on; 
“The writer [of Matthew’s Gospel] tells us, that 
Jesus escaped this slaughter [the slaughter of the 
infants of Bethlehem] because Joseph and Mary 
were warned by an angel to flee with him into 
Egypt; but he forgot to make any provision for 
John, who was then under two years of age. John, 
however, who stayed behind, fared as well as Jesus 
who fled, and therefore the story circumstantially 
belies itself.’* I reply, that we have no data 
for calculating that John, who was some months 
older than Jesus, was at this period under two 
years of age; and, further, that we have no reason 
to suppose that John was at this period at Bethle- 
hem, the place to which the massacre was limited. 
His parents lived in “the bill country,” in “a city 
of Judah,” + which has been supposed, — with no 
particular probability, it is true, — to be Hebron. 
Bethlehem at all events it was not. Bethlehem 
would not have been so described. 

Again ; “ Not any two of these writers agree in 
reciting, exactly in the same words, the written 
inscription, short as it is, which they tell us was 


* Theological Works, p. 131. t Luke, i. 39. 


366 DISCREPANCIES 1N THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 


put over Christ when he was crucified. ..... The 
inscription is thus stated in those books. 

Matthew, — ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’ 

Mark, —*‘'The King of the Jews.’ 

Luke, —*‘ This is the King of the Jews.’ 

John, — ‘ Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ 
We may infer from these circumstances, _ trivial 
as they are, that those writers, whoever they were, 
and in whatever time they lived, were not present 
at the scene.” * 

I do not think that we can infer any such thing. 
It surprises me not at all, that the disciples, — had 
they read with tearful eyes and bursting hearts the 
words over their dying Master’s cross,— should have 
reported them afterwards with such a degree of 
difference as this. But, if we could make that in- 
ference, it would not be at all material. John, speak- 
ing of himself under the name of “the disciple whom 
Jesus loved,” is the only one of them who professes 
to have been present at the scene. The inscription 
is specified with all the exactness to be expected 
in such a case, or which historians, writing in good 
faith, would have been likely to observe. Impos- 
tors might have studied a more scrupulous identity 
of phrase. 

Again; “Mark says, he was crucified at the 
third hour (nine in the morning) ; and John says, it 
was the sixth hour (twelve at noon).” + The facts 
here are altogether mis-stated. What John says, 
according to the common reading, is, that Jesus was 


* Theological Works, pp. 181, 182. t Ibid. p. 182. 


THOMAS PAINE. 367 


hurried away to crucifixion, “about the sixth hour sant 
an expression which intimates to the reader that 
considerable latitude is used. Also; the text of 
John is here quite uncertain, the manuscript au- 
thority being quite as good, if not better, in favor 
of the reading, ‘ the third,” instead of “ the sixth.” + 
Further ; my own opinion is, that Mark should be 
so translated as to be understood, that it was the 
parting of the garments of Jesus, of which he had 
spoken in the preceding verse, which took place in 
the third hour after his crucifixion. 

Again ; it is said, “‘ The accounts that are given 
of the circumstances, that they tell us attended the 
crucifixion, are differently related in those four 
books.” f ‘The word “ differently ” here again covers 
an ambiguity ; for, when the specification comes to 
be made, no instance is pointed out of inconsis- 
tency between the different narratives, but only 
examples of a greater fulness in the relation of 
circumstances by one, than by the others. 

Once more ; the narrative of the resurrection is 
referred to, as sustaining the same charge.§ But 
here, as before, it rests on a partially different 
selection of circumstances by the different writers, 
each having, as was natural, been led to record 
most fully those which came most within his per- 
sonal knowledge, or which for any reason made the 
strongest impression upon himself. Collected to- 
gether, they present no difficulty whatever, affecting 


* John, xix. 14. t See Griesbach or Wetstein; ad loc. 
t Theological Works, p. 1332. § Ibid. p. 134, et seq. 


368 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


the credibility of the whole or of any one. ‘They 
admit perfectly well of being combined into one 
orderly, consistent narrative, which shall embrace 
them all. ‘This has been done in somewhat dif- 
ferent ways by different commentators. ‘The 
method of the late Dr. Carpenter, as exhibited in 
a‘ Harmony,” published a few years ago in this 
city,* appears to me to present most naturally the 
whole series of incidents m the succession in 
which they actually occurred. But, whether one 
or another be preferred, of three or four different 
arrangements that have been proposed, is not ma- 
terial. Either will equally with the others serve to 
show, that no contradiction or incongruity can be 
pointed out in a comparison of the different par- 
ticulars of the story; that no part of that story, 
regarded as a whole, can be proved to conflict with 
any other. 

But the point which Paine has treated at the 
greatest length, and far the most successfully for 
his own object, is that very important one of the 
connexion of the New Testament with the Old. 
‘The Bible,” he says, “is the sire of the Testa- 
ment, and both are called the word of God. ‘The 
Christians read both books; the ministers preach 
from both books; and this thing, called Christian- 
ity, is made up of both.” + And, proceeding upon 
this thought, he makes large collections of what 


* A Harmony of the Gospels, on the Plan proposed by Lant Car- 
penter, LL. D. 
t Theological Works, p. 151. 


THOMAS PAINE. 369 


he regards as objectionable matter in the Old 
Testament; and, presenting it in a point of view 
to serve his purpose, and assuming that Christianity 
is responsible for all, concludes that the religion 
which sustains such things ought not to be referred 
to a divine origin. 

This method of reasoning was not new with this 
writer. In early times, as we have formerly seen, 
arguments were sought in the Old Testament, both 
by Jewish and Gentile unbelievers, wherewith to 
repel the pretensions of the New. From the first 
the Jews said, that Jesus of Nazareth did not cor- 
respond to the idea of their Messiah, as they had 
gathered it from the reading of their prophets; the 
latter bemg that chiefly of a temporal prince and 
champion, while the former professed to be only a 
spiritual deliverer. Such, it is plain, was the chief 
cause of the aversion of the Jews at the time of 
the promulgation of our faith. So, as we saw in 
the proper place, argued Trypho against Justin in 
the second century; and the incongruity, in this 
respect, between the Old Testament and the New, 
was dwelt upon at large by Celsus the Epicurean 
in the same age, by Porphyry the Platonist in the 
third century, and by the Emperor Julian in the 
fourth. With the revival of the controversy in 
modern times, this objection was revived, and, 
while it was still the strong-hold of Jewish unbe- 
lief, was urged, with much more ability than ever 
before, by Collins, a hundred years ago. At the 


same time a different objection to Christianity, de- 
Vox. II. 47 


370 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


rived from the same source, assumed a prominent 
importance in the discussion. Bolingbroke assailed 
the authenticity of the whole Old Testament col- 
lection, and, with Morgan, Chubb, and others, con- 
demned various parts of its contents, as incredible, 
unprofitable, and immoral. Voltaire took up the 
topic, and treated it, for Continental readers, with 
that exceeding dexterity, of which his peculiar 
constitution of mind made him capable. Paine 
succeeded him, and addressed it to readers of the 
English language ; and it is to this argument, | 
conceive, that the effects wrought by his book are 
chiefly, —I might say, almost wholly, — attribu- 
table. 

In looking forward to that part of our discussion 
in which this topic has its place, I felt, for a time, 
no little hesitation as to the manner of dealing with 
it; hesitation, arising, not from any suspense of 
my own mind, which has for several years been 
wholly made up upon the question, but from an 
unwillingness to take a ground, while defending 
our common faith, which might give pain to any 
believer. But I could not be excused for avoiding 
the question. A calm frankness is in every such 
case the least offensive, as well as the honorable, 
course ; and [ shall use in relation to this point the 
same unreserved candor which I have observed 
upon every other. The point is of the utmost im- 
portance. In my opinion, it lies at the basis of 
most of the current objections to Christianity, which, 
this point disposed of, would almost cease to be 


THOMAS PAINE. 371 


heard. But 1 know not the book, in our own, or 
in any other language, which treats it in a manner 
to give satisfaction to a reasonable Christian or a 
reasonable unbeliever. I cannot but regard it as 
having been hitherto the subject of a shallow criti- 
cism on the part both of friends and of foes. Other 
objections, famous in their day, have one by one 
been disposed of, and cease to present themselves, 
at least with the same confident front as formerly. 
The placing of this upon its proper footing, is, if I 
do not err, the one thing, which has not yet been 
done, and which needs to be done, I will not say 
for the completion, but for the adjustment and 
brightening, of the then continuous, firm, and 
tenacious chain of the Christian evidences. 

These remarks premised, I proceed to give a 
brief outline of my views respecting the actual 
state of the case. In common with most other 
Christians, I confidently believe the religion of 
the Old ‘Testament to be of supernatural divine 
origin, as well as the religion of the New. But I 
do not find reason to attribute to all the contents 
of the Old Testament the character and sense 
which have been generally ascribed to them; nor, 
in some particulars, can I understand, in the same 
manner as has been common, that testimony to the 
Old Testament, contained in the New, which has 
been regarded as imposing on the latter so com- 
plete and peculiar a responsibility for the former. 

As to the New Testament, I do not dispute the 
principle, —on the contrary I contend for it, — 


372, OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


that its testimony to the character and sense of the 
Old, — whatever that testimony may be found to be, 
—is to be taken as decisive of the question. But | 
ask what its testimony is. And I find it to be this. 
First; the New ‘Testament recognises Moses, the 
founder of the Jewish system, as a miraculously 
accredited messenger from God, and his religion, 
accordingly, as a supernatural divine institution. 
Secondly ; it recognises the existence, im the Old 
Testament records, of true and supernaturally sug- 
gested predictions of the coming Messiah. But the 
inspiration of all the parts, or of all the authors, of 
that collection, the authenticity of all the books, the 
correctness of the representations of all the events 
spoken of in the Old ‘Testament, whether past, 
present, or future, to the writers, — these I can- 
not find that the New Testament does anywhere 
avouch. I know that the critics speak of a ‘ Can- 
on of the Old Testament,” which the New Tes- 
tament, by that authority of its own to which I 
bow as much as any man, declares to be authorita- 
tive. But I have sought in vain in the New Tes- 
tament for any declaration of that import. 

With these general views of the testimony of the 
New Testament concerning the Old, I take up the 
Old Testament itself. And first I address myself 
to that part of it, which is said to be the work of 
the great founder of the institution, — the Penta- 
teuch, — the Law, — the five books of Moses. And 
on a careful examination of those books, | do not 
find in them any thing, whieh, fairly interpreted, 


THOMAS PAINE. oto 


discredits, but, on the contrary, very much that 
corroborates that testimony, handed down from the 
remotest generations of the Jewish people, which 
refers those books to Moses as their author. Pro- 
ceeding to a further investigation, | arrive at the 
conclusion, that the religion they teach, and the 
institutions they prescribe, considered, as of course 
they should be, with relation to the existing time 
and circumstances, were such as it was eminently 
worthy of the divine wisdom and goodness to 
establish. I do not willingly overlook any objec- 
tion which has been urged against them. I care- 
fully weigh whatever has been said to their preju- 
dice, in respect to the alleged insignificance of some 
parts of the revelation, and the unreasonableness 
and even unrighteousness of others; and my con- 
clusion in favor of the pretension of Moses and his 
religion to supernatural authority remains unsha- 
ken, and is strengthened by the more careful exam- 
ination to which every objection leads. If this 
conclusion should be found to be correct, then the 
objections of Voltaire, Paine, and others, to the 
Old Testament, are untenable as far as respects 
the Mosaic institution, strictly so called. 

But there is another part of the composition of 
Moses, besides what relates to his own mission 
and the transactions of his own time. In the 
book of Genesis, evidently a sort of Preface to 
those which follow, events are referred to, belong- 
ing to much earlier periods than that of the 
writer. In the detail of these, he has been under- 


374 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


stood by readers to assume a new character, — that 
of a general historian, — and to relate history, an- 
cient, some of it exceedingly ancient, even to him, 
with the advantage of a claim upon the implicit 
assent of his readers, derived from the peculiar 
supernatural qualifications with which he had been 
endowed for his office of a messenger of religious 
truth from God. Buta difficulty in assenting to 
that claim, — rather, in supposing Moses to have 
made that claim, — a difficulty altogether indepen- 
dent of any reluctance to yield to it if really made, 
— presents itself to the reader at the outset. He 
observes that, repeatedly, two accounts of sub- 
stantially the same event are presented in immedi- 
ate succession, which two accounts partly are mere 
repetitions, the one of the other, and partly, in some 
of their circumstances, mere mutual contradictions ; 
contradictions too, so express and evident, that it 
is impossible they could have escaped the writer’s 
notice. 

Could Moses write thus, in the character of an 
historian? If we assume him to have written in 
Genesis as a supernaturally inspired historian, which 
statement of his shall we accept as infallible, — for 
we cannot possibly accept both, — that the universe 
was made in seven days, as is said in the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, or that it was made in one, as is 
declared in the second; that the animals went 
into the ark of Noah, the clean by sevens, and the 
not clean by twos, as is related near the beginning 
of the seventh chapter, or the clean and the unclean 


THOMAS PAINE. 375 


indiscriminately by pairs, according to the represen- 
tation a little further on ? 

Such observations put one upon the inquiry, 
whether, in the composition of Genesis, Moses is 
not to be considered as aiming at the object of his 
other labors in the establishment of his religion 
and its institutions, rather than as entering the 
different province of an annalist of the distant 
ages. 

This idea acquires confirmation from some further 
noticeable facts. A careful comparison of the pas- 
sages in Genesis, which, as has been remarked, now 
merely repeat, and now expressly contradict one 
another, shows them to be respectively character- 
ized by certain remarkable peculiarities of phrase- 
ology, in the use of which they are alike consistent 
with themselves, and distinguished each from the 
other.* From this we gather (may I not say with 
certainty’) that the fragments in question are the 
productions of different writers; in other words, 
that this part of the work of Moses (for in an im- 
portant sense it is still his) 1s a compilation. 

But why should he compile statements which do 
not agree together? What object could have in- 
duced him to that course? He could not take it, 
in what was intended for a continuous consistent 
history. He would then have reconciled the diver- 
sities of statement; or he would have preferred 
one; or he would have omitted both. In what 


“For a full treatment of this subject, see the author’s Academical 
Lectures, &c. Vol. II. 


376 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


kind of composition could he do it? I reply; 
In a composition of a didactic character; in an 
argument. Here such a method would be entirely 
in place. And a composition of that character | 
take the book of Genesis (particularly the first 
eleven chapters) to be; substantially an argu- 
ment, though not cast in an artificial form. And 
the great heads of that argument I take to be three, 
as follows. 

When he is at pains to relate, in the adduction 
of such authorities as ancient history, accessible to 
him, supplied, that Abram, Isaac, and Jacob had 
successively had a divine promise of the land of 
Canaan for their posterity; * that they all succes- 
sively took actual possession by pitching their tent 
in one place, digging a well in another, buying 
a tomb in a third, and building an altar in a 
fourth; that Abram and Lot came of old from 
the east, and established themselves together in the 
region, but that Lot had left it by a peaceable par- 
tition with Abram, renouncing thereby all future 
claim to it for himself, and by consequence for his 
posterity, the Moabites and Ammonites;{ that 
Abram, thus enjoying it in undivided property, dis- 
missed Ishmael and his other sons from it that it 
might become the sole inheritance of Isaac and his 
sons;§ that, of Isaac’s sons, Esau withdrew to 
Edom, leaving the exclusive territorial claim of 


* Gen. xiii. 15; xxvi.3; xxxv. 12. 
t Ibid. E. g. xii. 7,8; xxii. 16; xxvi, 19; xxxv. 7. 
t Ibid. xiii, 1 — 12. § Tbhid. xxii. 215 xxv. 6. 


THOMAS PAINE. 317 


Jacob, and, thus, of Jacob’s posterity, unchalleng- 
ed;*—when Moses, I say, collects the ancient 
authorities, which, with whatever minor varieties of 
statement, agree in these leading facts, I under- 
stand him, writing as he did in the wilds of Arabia, 
as then and there addressing a virtual argument to 
his people to the effect, that to them, and them 
alone, by virtue of divine gift and of rightful inherit- 
ance, belonged that land of Canaan, which he was 
inviting them to invade. 

Again; when I find him collecting unconnected 
statements of sacrifices having been anciently prac- 
tised, as in the case of several of the patriarchs ; f 
of circumcision, { of a payment of tithes, as in the 
case of Melchisedec, § and of a distinction between 
clean and unclean beasts having been recognised in 
the language of a fragment of a primeval age, || — 
and this list might be largely increased, but it would 
be by a slow induction of particulars, —I under- 
derstand him as virtually addressing to the people, 
to whom a law had just been given upon Mount 
Sinai, considerations drawn from the example of 
the venerated ancients, and designed to conciliate 
their assent to onerous and unwelcome provisions 
of that law. 

Once more; in that earliest part of his book, 
where he has placed together different accounts, 
existing in his age, of the beginning of human 


*' Gen. xxxiii; 16. t Ibid. E. g. viii. 20; xv. 9; xxxv. 14. 
¢ Ibid. xvii. 23. § Ibid. xiv. 20. || Ibid. vii. 2, 8. 


Vou. 1k 48 


378 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


things, I regard him as intending substantially to 
Say to his people, in exact consistency with his re- 
ligious office ; You see what narratives have come 
down to our day of the events of the earliest times. 
They contradict each other, indeed, in subordinate 
circumstances, and therefore cannot be circum- 
stantially true. But this is not what concerns us. 
Differing as they do in other particulars, and thereby 
showing themselves to be of independent origin, 
in these two all-important particulars they perfectly 
agree. ‘They agree in representing the Creator of 
the world, first, as being one, and, secondly, as ex- 
ercising a watchful providence and a moral govern- 
ment. One God created the world, whether he 
created it in one manner or another. God’s pro- 
vidence took care of men’s welfare, and his omni- 
science and justice took notice of their sins. You 
thereby see, that those cardinal doctrines, taught 
only, in this age, in my religion, and rejected by 
the depraving idolatries which surround us, were the 
approved faith of the simple and innocent infancy 
of the world. 

This account of the book of Genesis, if it be 
esteemed correct, will meet all that has been said by 
unbelievers of the incredibility of statements con- 
cerning the creation, and the condition of the 
primeval age. Moses did not present himself as an 
authority on those subjects. Had he designed to 
do so, he would not have produced authorities, 
which, in their details, only nullify one another. 
He produced them only to appeal to their singular 


THOMAS PAINE. 379 


agreement, in the midst of other discordance, in 
respect to certain matters which it did concern him 
to enforce. 

To me, Moses is the revealer of the Jewish reli- 
gion, the “teacher sent from God,” as Jesus was 
on a still higher errand; and the Law of Moses, in 
the Pentateuch, contains the authoritative record of 
that faith as the New Testament does of the faith 
of Jesus. What little I am now to say upon the 
later books, may, from the difference of the topics 
it presents, be conveniently arranged under two 
divisions. 

As to the later historical books, I deny that 
Christianity has in any way made itself, or can in 
any reason be held, responsible for their contents, 
in point of historical correctness, or moral influence, 
or any thing else. With my views, the unbeliever 
may expose the (to say the least) extremely faulty 
character of David or of Solomon, or he may dis- 
pute the fact of the stopping of the sun in the days 
of Joshua, or the carrying away of the gates of 
Gaza on the shoulders of Samson, and he will dis- 
turb my faith in Christianity no more, than if he 
should assail the fame of any other prince, or dis- 
pute the reality of any other alleged extraordinary 
event, in any history whatever. I cannot consent 
to admit that Christianity shall stand or fall with 
the truth, or reasonableness, or usefulness, — 
whether these be greater or less, —of the con- 
tents, for instance, of the books of Joshua, Judges, 
Samuel, the Kings, and Chronicles, so called, tll 


380 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


a much better argument than | have ever yet 
seen has been produced, establishing an intimate 
connexion between the two. I cannot find that 
Christianity, by the lips of its author, or the 
writings of his servants, ever avowed that con- 
nexion. 

As I read the New Testament, it has left the 
question respecting the origin and the authority 
of those books an open one. And, looking at it as 
an open question, and applying to all appropriate 
sources of information, [ do not find that any 
known body of the Jews, even in our Saviour’s 
time, nor for some generations later, were agreed 
upon any collection of writings which in any sense 
could be called an “ Old Testament Canon,” — 
though, if they had been, in that comparatively 
modern age, it would have been but a feeble basis 
for any argument ; and I do find, on the other hand, 
the very important fact, that the Sadducees, a large, 
and the most learned, portion of the nation, — not 
to add the Caraites also, of whom we know less, — 
did, in that age, make a wide distinction between 
the Law, properly so called,—the Pentateuch,— 
and all other books. Again; looking at those later 
historical books themselves, one by one, and at the 
best evidence we have respecting their dates, it 
appears, that, in no instance of those previous to 
the captivity, can we determine with a reasonable 
degree of probability who was its author; and that, 
on the other hand, they were, in every instance, 
the production of some writer living at a time con- 


THOMAS PAINE. 381 


siderably subsequent to that of the events which 
they record, and so writing, not only (to us, at 
least) anonymously, but without any thing of the 
authority of a contemporaneous witness. If these 
views concerning the historical books after the 
the Pentateuch be admitted as just, we are provided 
with a very ready answer to Paine, without dis- 
puting the truth of his extravagant language, where 
he speaks of ‘the obscene stories, the voluptuous 
debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, 
the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more 
than half the Bible is filled. ” * 

The rest of the Old Testament collection con- 
sists of what are commonly called the prophetical, 
and other poetical, books. With regard to these, 
the established opinion is, that their writers, or 
most of them, were supernaturally endowed with a 
knowledge of future events. As to far the greater 
portion of the contents of those books, it is obvious 
to the most cursory inspection, that they do not re- 
late to the future in any manner. But this, | grant, 
does not at all forbid the idea that other portions of 
them do. If the writers of those books enjoyed 
the endowment of supernatural foreknowledge 
commonly attributed to them, that fact must be- 
come known to us in one or the other of two ways; 
either from declarations of the New ‘Testament 
to that effect, or from evidence furnished by their 
own compositions in our possession. 


* Theological Works, p. 40. 


382 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


As to declarations of the New Testament to 
that effect, it is a mistake to suppose that any such 
can be found. ‘The fact that the New Testament 
called them prophets is not at all to the purpose. 
The idea that the title prophet necessarily denotes, 
that the person designated by it possesses a mirac- 
ulous knowledge of the future, is altogether arbi- 
trary and unfounded. ‘The primitive sense of the 
word prophet is a speaker, or preacher. ‘Thus 
Aaron was the prophet, or spokesman, of Moses, 
because it was known that he could “speak well.” * 
A prophet, as such, may speak of the present or the 
past, as well as of the future ; and, when he speaks 
of the future, he may do it with supernatural 
knowledge, or without. 

The New ‘Testament, as | have before said, does 
recognise supernatural predictions of Jesus in 
the Old. But, if supernatural predictions of Jesus 
occur, as I understand them to do, in the books of 
the inspired lawgiver Moses, then that condition of 
the New Testament declarations is met, without the 
necessity of supposing supernatural foreknowledge 
to have been vouchsafed to any other individual 
under the Old dispensation. ‘The New ‘Testament 
also declares, that the Messiah was spoken of by 
the prophets. t But how spoken of? He was 
spoken of also, as occasion prompted, by every un- 
inspired Jew, who lived in the prophets’ time. 
Every Jew, after the age of Moses, looked for him, 


* Exodus, iv. 14. t John, i. 45. 


THOMAS PAINE, 383 


whom Moses had said that the Lord God would in 
due time raise up, “like unto himself.” * ‘To be 
spoken of, is one thing. To be spoken of in the 
expression of miraculous foreknowledge, is another ; 
and in this latter way, as I read the New ‘Testa- 
ment, it does not declare that Jesus was spoken of 
by the prophets after Moses. In my recent Lecture 
upon the argument of Collins, I showed, I trust, to 
the satisfaction of my hearers, that forms of lan- 
guage, with which the New Testament writers 
frequently introduce quotations from the Old, can- 
not be taken as indicating, that it was events long 
ago supernaturally foretold, which in their time had 
come to pass; and certainly it is a remarkable fact, 
that the passage in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
which has always been regarded as more favora- 
ble than any other in the later prophets to the 
hypothesis of a supernatural knowledge of the future 
on the part of its author, and which was the only 
one that the sagacious Paley ventured to vindicate 
as a specimen of that kind of argument, is never 
adduced in the New Testament in that peculiar and 
prominent application, for which, in the opinion of 
this writer and of others, it is so singularly suited. 
Finally; he who maintains that those writers 
pretended to a miraculous insight into the future, 
will find, unless I greatly err, that he does them 
serious injustice; for, building his interpretation of 
their language on that basis, he will not be able to 
show an instance, in which the pretension he in- 


* Deut; xviii, 15, 


384 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


Juriously ascribes to them was clearly borne out 
by the subsequent fact; while he will find not a 
few instances, in which their words, if understood 
so differently from their real, original, honest pur- 
port, were belied by later history. ‘They wrote 
in perfect good faith. ‘They put forward no un- 
sustained pretension. It is only their erroneous 
interpreters that expose them to the charge. 

This theory, if sustained, furnishes an answer to 
all that was urged by Paine, in his treatise entitled 
‘An Examination of the Passages in the New 
Testament quoted from the Old, and called Prophe- 
cies concerning Jesus Christ,””—a posthumous work, 
which he is said to have intended for one division 
of a Third Part of his unfinished “‘ Age of Reason,” 
in answer to Watson, Bishop of Llandaff. It 
meets what was urged, in that work, by Paine, 
as it has been by other writers, to show that the 
supernatural foreknowledge ascribed by Christians 
to the later prophets was falsely pretended. Chris- 
tians have ascribed it to the later prophets. But 
the later prophets set up no such pretension for 
themselves ; nor did the writers of the New ‘Tes- 
tament set it up for them. 

I am fully sensible, at what a disadvantage I throw 
out these hints. ‘To illustrate them properly, to 
protect them against misapprehension, and to un- 
fold their details and bearings, would require a 
review of the literary history of some of the Old 
Testament books, and a minute criticism, one by 


one, of all the passages, both in the Old and New 


THOMAS PAINE. 385 


Testament, — by no means, however, so numerous 
as may be imagined, — which at first sight have 
the appearance of conflicting with the representa- 
tion | have made; and this would be a work for 
several lectures instead of fora part of one. Briefly 
as they are now presented, I have that confidence 
in their correctness, which arises from knowing them 
to have been long and anxiously pondered, and pa- 
tiently matured. The subject was once one of great 
perplexity and uneasiness to my own mind. The 
conclusions, at which I eventually arrived, have not, 
for several years, experienced any change as to 
their principles ; but successive investigations, year 
after year, in the course of which I have examined 
the whole text of the Old and of the New Testa- 
ment, in the original languages, many times over, 
with particular relation to this point, have but given 
me increased confidence in the correctness of those 
principles, and shown me the consistency with them 
of every passage in the Bible, which formerly, by 
the force of education and habit, had presented 
itself to me under a different aspect. Attachment 
to favorite studies may have biassed me; but I will 
not disguise my conviction, that the one great ser- 
vice which now remains to be done for the credit 
of Christianity, is to consist in a just exposition of 
the contents and authority of the several Old Tes- 
tament books, in order to relieve Christianity from 
those objections against it, of which the Old ‘Tes- 
tament, as now regarded, is the source ; — objec- 
tions originating ina vicious mode of interpretation, 


Vou. Il. 49 


386 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


by Christians themselves, which was introduced 
into the Church as early, at least, as the time of 
Justin Martyr, and which has unhappily been 
permitted to have authority down to the present day. 

In the next Lecture I shall treat of Infidelity in 
Germany. 


LEC CUE SL 


INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


My audience are aware, that it is but recently 
that Germany, a country now unprecedentedly fer- 
tile in writers, has possessed a literature of its own. 
Its infidel opinions, as far as they were derived 
from books, were at first, for the most part, intro- 
duced from abroad. ‘The labors of its earliest 
Reformers had terminated in the secure establish- 
ment, within its limits, of the Protestant church, 
which, regulated by the Lutheran and Calvinistic 
creeds and symbols, had assumed the order, and 
come to be affected with something of that cold- 
ness which is the besetting vice, of an establish- 
ment. A lifeless dogmatism is complained of as 
having become the spirit of the time ; and doctrines, 
forms, and polemics threatened to supplant the 
consideration due only to a religious life. 

In this state of things, one hundred and fifty years 
after Luther, appeared a practical reformer, Philip 
Jacob Spener, who may be compared, as to his tone 


388 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


of thought, and (with some propriety) as to the 
nature of his labors, to Fenelon or to Wesley. He 
urged the claims of a spiritual, personal, practical 
religion, in opposition to mere correctness of belief, 
and observance of formalities; and the effect of his 
labors, and of those of a large portion of the clergy 
who became his adherents, or sympathized with 
his views, was to diffuse to a great extent, among 
the people at large, a religion of more sentiment 
and warmth, and more stimulating to the imagina- 
tion, than had hitherto prevailed; while, on the 
other hand, such as, by constitution or some other 
cause, were especially apprehensive of mystical and 
fanatical tendencies in religion, were led, by the 
common influences of controversy, to enclose them- 
selves still more strictly within the limits of a pre- 
cise, dogmatical, technical faith. ‘There was little 
that could properly be called intellectual action, on 
either side, upon the subject. On the one, feeling 
was the great prompter. On the other, there was 
not much that went beyond logical exposition and 
defence of opinions and institutions of the Church, 
which were understood to have been authoritatively 
determined at the age of the Reformation. 

The first real activity of the mind upon the sub- 
jects of which we are speaking may, I think, be 
regarded as having been transferred from the circles 
of philosophical disputation ; though I do not per- 
ceive, that, at this early period, the influence of 
any particular school of philosophy upon religious 
opinion can be distinctly traced. ‘The applications 


FREDERICK THE GREAT. 3889 


made by Leibnitz of his philosophical theory to 
that of religion, and his animadversions upon doc- 
trines of Locke and Bayle, only went to confirm 
views unanimously entertamed in Germany by the 
religious parties. With the system of Wolf, which 
succeeded to that of Leibnitz, and bore sway in 
Germany till the middle of the last century, it was 
different. He was at much pams to show the 
consistency of the evidences and the doctrines of 
Christianity with a sound philosophy, and repre- 
sented it as a prominent excellence of his own 
scheme, that it rendered this service to that religion. 
But others, particularly the theologians of the school 
of Spener, charged him with having done it a wrong 
in stripping it unduly of its peculiar character of 
mystery, and with having favored that encroach- 
ment of deistical opinions, which he had professed 
himself so anxious to obstruct. 

At all events, the taste for philosophical investi- 
gation and inquiry, which had been cultivated in 
Germany by the writings of Leibnitz, Wolf, and 
their disciples, naturally extended itself to the re- 
gion of theology. There were as yet no native 
assailants of Christianity ; but the literary reputation 
of England was at its height, and among others the 
works of Tindal, Collins, Morgan, Woolston, and 
Bolingbroke found their way into German hands ; 
and when, in 1740, Frederick the Second, called 
the Great, ascended the throne of Prussia, the repu- 
tation of that extraordinary person, as well as the 
more direct influence of the policy of his adminis- 


390 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


tration, favored, through nearly forty years, the 
spread of the infidel principles to which he was 
attached. ‘The harsh treatment experienced by 
Frederick in his youth had inspired him with a dis- 
gust against the religion to which his father was a 
stern devotee ; and, when he had become his own 
master, he made no secret of his aversion. He 
invited the French atheists to his court, and lived 
with them on terms of familiar friendship ; and that 
perfect liberty of speech and of the press, which 
he as freely permitted upon religious, as he peremp- 
torily forbade it upon political questions, was well 
known to be used most satisfactorily to himself, 
when Christianity, in all its forms, was made the 
object of assault and ridicule. His constitution, as 
well as the unfortunate circumstances of his early 
life, had something to do with this propensity. 
Never did greatness, in a civilized age, appear in a 
coarser and more unspiritual form, than in that of 
the Prussian hero. 

John Christopher Edelmann, of Weissenfels, 
may, I suppose, be properly named as the first Ger- 
man infidel writer of considerable note. His works, 
of which the earliest was published in the year 
1735, exhibit him as a mystic and Pantheist, after 
the manner of more recent manifestations of the 
German mind; but his particular objections to the 
authority of Christianity present no points of view 
which had not been anticipated by some other 
writer. In respect to its records, he sympathized 
with the crude historical skepticism of Bolingbroke ; 


THE WOLFENBUTTEL FRAGMENTS. 391 


and, as to its claim to reception as a rule of life, he 
stood on much the same ground as Morgan. He 
speaks of the sacred books with respect, as con- 
taining much truth and wisdom on the highest 
subjects of human thought, but denies that their 
authors wrote with the benefit of any supernatural 
illumination. The New Testament he will have 
to be a collection of the time of Constantine the 
Great, and to have been since subject to much cor- 
ruption. Miracles, in consistency with his Panthe- 
istic principles, he holds to be impossible, since, if 
God and Nature are the same, of course nothing 
supernatural can ever be. I do not resume the 
consideration of these doctrines, which have wall 
received attention in their place. 

Edelmann died in 1767. Seven years after, be- 
gan the most famous of the avowed attacks on 
Christianity, which that country has yet produced, 
in a series of papers called “The Wolfenbittel 
Fragments.” The authorship of these essays, os- 
tensibly found in the great library at Wolfenbittel, 
and published, from time to time, by Lessing its 
keeper, has not, that I know, been traced with 
certainty ; but it is commonly ascribed to Reimar, 
a Professor at Hamburg, who had before become 
favorably known by several publications, especially 
by some in defence of natural religion against the 
French atheism. The distinctive doctrine of the 
“Fragments” is, that the enterprise of Jesus was a 
merely selfish and worldly one, in the accomplish- 
ment of which he was frustrated, and lost his life 


392 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


as the forfeit of his temerity; that, excited by the 
prevailing expectations of the nation, as we know 
that some others of the time were, whom the New 
Testament calls “false Christs”, he had proposed to 
himself to organize an insurrection among his coun- 
trymen, to place himself at its head, and so to seat 
himself on the restored throne of David; that, to 
this end, he had entered into a conspiracy with 
John the Baptist, who presented himself as his 
forerunner ; that, when he supposed a sufficient 
impression to have been produced upon the public 
mind to warrant an open movement, he made a 
public entrance into the Holy City at the time of 
the Passover, and by words and deeds avowed his 
purpose; that, not meeting with the expected 
support, he withdrew into a retirement, where he 
was apprehended; that he was subsequently put 
to death ; and that his followers, in this emergency, 
bethought themselves of a new method of taking 
advantage of the influence, which, in his company, 
they had acquired over a portion of the people, and 
gave out that the object had always been to estab- 
lish, not a worldly, but a spiritual dominion; in 
which pretension, by force of zeal and _persever- 
ance, they succeeded, to the extent of establishing, 
in the civilized nations, that religious institution, 
which survives to our time.* 


* The above is the doctrine of the “Fragment”? on The Design of 
Jesus and his Disciples, which appeared in 1778. The titles of others, 
of earlier date, were, On Toleration of Deists, On Decrying Reason, On 
the Impossibility of a Revelation offering Reasonable Grounds of Be- 
lief to All Men, On the History of Christ’s Resurrection. 


THE WOLFENBUTTEL FRAGMENTS. 393 


This easy theory made its converts, and had its 
day, though at present only noticeable as belonging 
to the history of the subject. The attention it at- 
tracted is, | conceive, readily accounted for by the 
consideration, that, whereas the general and vague 
charge of imposture, the natural resource of reso- 
lute unbelief, had been repeatedly made, and, from 
its very vagueness, had afforded little satisfaction as 
a solution of the problem, here was a specification 
of the nature, object, and manner of the imposture 
affirmed. ‘This was certainly enough to impart 
interest to the scheme. It became a subject of 
curiosity to see how far the recorded facts, by which 
the hypothesis undertook to sustain itself, could be 
shown to correspond with and confirm it. And the 
theory in fact lived long enough for that inquiry to 
be made, and scarcely any longer. 

The method of maintaining it was, from the 
conditions of the case, a criticism which aimed to 
show, that the conduct of Jesus, as described in the 
Gospels, accorded with the supposition of the 
worldly views ascribed to him. But the furthest 
it could advance, in this undertaking, was to pro- 
duce certain facts, which, taken by themselves, 
were reconcilable with that supposition. When it 
attempted to proceed further, in either of the two 
other necessary steps of the argument, — namely, to 
show either that any part of the recorded conduct 
of Jesus was inconsistent with the religious charac- 
ter of his enterprise, as commonly understood, or 


that all parts of it would admit the supposition of 
Vor. I. 50 


394, INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


an ambitious political scheme, — then it doomed 
itself to a signal failure. 

Is it said, for instance, that, when Jesus at one 
time fed a multitude with great publicity, and, at 
another, said to a cured leper, “See thou tell no 
man,’ he adopted expedients suitable to an adven- 
turer, who now would make the most of his noto- 
riety, and now must take care of his personal safe- 
ty, —or that, when he rode into the capital city 
with a train of followers, and afterwards, meeting 
with coldness and opposition, withdrew, he did what 
would have been likely to be done by a disappointed 
and alarmed insurgent, — we have no hesitation in 
granting that this, in each case, is one of the con- 
structions, which, if we knew no more, would bear 
to be put upon his conduct. Of course, in the 
history of Jesus, as of others, we are to expect 
to find single actions, which we shall interpret in 
one way or in an another, according to the guid- 
ance we obtain from other parts of his character 
andconduct. ‘That is not at all the question. The 
questions are, to repeat it, whether, in all that is 
recorded of Jesus, there is any one thing which 
contradicts the view of those, who regard him as a 
supernaturally endowed messenger from God for 
the religious benefit of men; and whether, on the 
other hand, there are not things, and that in abun- 
dance, which will absolutely admit no other expla- 
nation. 

The criticism which will establish either of these 
propositions will be to the purpose. But it is ob- 


THE WOLFENBUTTEL FRAGMENTS. 395 


vious to remark, that it will involve the argument 
that Jesus and his apostles, — or, at least, Jesus or 
his apostles, — were concerned in an imposture. 
In order to the sustaining of any such specific 
allegation of fraudulent design as that to which we 
are now attending, it is manifestly indispensable 
that the positive proof of integrity, adduced in be- 
half of the persons concerned, should be refuted or 
brought into just suspicion. ‘The very object that 
we have, in settling the point, by the decisive 
weight of the considerations formerly produced, 
that the supposition of imposture is absolutely un- 
tenable, is to preclude the idea, not only of fraud 
in general, but of fraud in every possible particular 
form and manner. If the arguments were good, 
by which it was undertaken to show that the foun- 
ders of our religion were, beyond all contradiction, 
sincere and honest, then every imaginable scheme 
of dishonesty alike is shown to be alien from their 
purpose. Whoever will convict them of some 
specified treacherous design, must first find some 
flaw in the reasoning which professes to settle the 
question of their integrity. ‘To guess what wicked 
purpose they might have entertained, supposing 
them to be capable of entertaining any, is altogether 
irrelevant, till the possibility, consistently with ac- 
knowledged facts, of supposing them capable of 
entertaining any, has first been made to appear. 
The “ Wolfenbiittel Fragments ” constituted the 
last, as well as the first, considerable German work, 
in which, upon deistical grounds, the authority of the 


396 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


Christian revelation was professedly and manfully 
assailed. <‘‘ From that time,” says a German his- 
torian, “writings against Christianity made con- 
tinually less impression, and appeared less frequent- 
ly. One cause of this was, that it had become 
manifest, that by such writings nothing would be 
accomplished against the substance of Christianity, 
its standing as a public institution of religion, or 
the character of its founder. Another was, that a 
coldness and carelessness in relation to it had be- 
come generally diffused, and that Naturalism, along 
with a certain indifference to its historical claims, 
was continually on the increase among the theolo- 
gians of Germany.” * 

An analysis of the character of this singular peo- 
ple, in order to explain the influences that have 
brought them to what I regard as the altogether 
false and untenable position, in respect to religion, 
which they at present occupy, would be a task, even 
were I competent to its proper execution, of too 
great extent to be undertaken in connexion with an 
argument, with which, after all, it has not the closest 
relations. But a few statements respecting the 
recent course of opinion in a community, in which 
opinion fluctuates with an altogether unparalleled 
and unapproached facility and levity, may afford 
some aid towards an elucidation of what will still 
require to be set down as a series of the most ex- 
traordinary phenomena in the history of extrav- 
agances of the human mind. 


* Staadlin, Geschichte der Theologischen Wissenchaften, Th, If. s. 457. 


IMMANUEL KANT. 397 


The mathematico-metaphysical system of the 
Wolfian philosophy, which succeeded to, as it much 
resembled, that of Leibnitz, received its death-blow 
in its native country, at the hand of the new ‘Tran- 
scendental Theory, the theory of Kant. Of this, in 
its merely metaphysical, or its technical, features, 
it does not belong to our present purpose to speak. 
But the skepticism of Kant, —I use the word in 
its philosophical and comprehensive sense, — was 
not less thorough-going, while it was much more 
systematic and consistent with itself, than that of 
Hume, whose speculations, to use Kant’s own lan- 
guage, ‘first interrupted his dogmatical slumber, 
and gave a wholly different direction to his inquiries 
in the field of speculative philosophy.” * ‘The dis- 
tinctive principle of Kant’s theory is, that truth is 
to be found only in the field of experience, that all 
ideas not obtained through the senses are beyond 
the apprehension of the human mind, and that the 
attempt to seize them does but plunge it into an 
inextricable maze of contradiction. “ All synthet- 
ical & priori propositions,” he says, ‘are nothing 
but the elements of possible experience, and can 
never be referred to things as they really are, but 
only to phenomena as objects of experience.” f 
From this it follows, that all our knowledge is sub- 
jective, as the Germans call it, and that we can 
never know things as they are, but only as they 


* Prolegomena zu einer jeden Kinfltigen Metaphystk, u. s. f. s. 13. 
t Ibid. p, 102. 


398 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


seem tous. ‘Truth, according to this scheme, has 
not only not yet been reached ; it never can be. 
The inference in respect to convictions of reli- 
gious truth, —or rather the application to them of 
this theory, developed in Kant’s great work, entitled 
the “Critique of Pure Reason,” — was too plain 
to admit of any question. As the ideas of God 
and duty are not derived directly from the senses, 
there not only was not, — there could not be, — 
any proof of the real existence of either. This 
was of course at once remarked; and Kant, who 
professed his own belief in both, labored, in a later 
treatise, the “Critique of Practical Reason,” to 
supply the defect, and to point out in the moral 
nature that foundation for the belief in things 
unseen and eternal, which the speculative reason 
could not supply. But this attempt has been gen- 
erally regarded, both by friends and foes, as a mere 
excrescence upon, and incongruity with, his system. 
The “ Critique of Pure Reason ” was published 
in the year 1781. Fichte, a disciple and friend of its 
author, is thought by some of his friends to have 
added ‘ the key-stone of the arch.”* What we call 
God, according to Fichte, is not a personal exis- 
tence, but “a moral principle of arrangement in the 
Universe, a notion to which the J lifts itself by 
means of its consciousness of being controlled, in 
the exercise of its freedom, by the idea of duty.” + 


* Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chap. 9,(Vol. I. p.94. Edit. New 
York, 1817.) 
t Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, § 395 (s. 501.) 


FICHTE AND SCHELLING. 399 


‘“‘ According to Fichte,” says Cousin, in his “ Intro- 
duction to the History of Philosophy,” ‘God is 
nothing but the subject of thought conceived as 
absolute ;.he is therefore still the J [that is, the 
individual who contemplates him]. But, as it is 
repugnant to human thought, that the J of man, 
which might indeed be transferred into Nature, 
should be imposed upon God, Fichte distinguishes 
between a two-fold J; the one phenomenal, namely 
the J which each of us represents; the other 
itself the substance of the /, namely, God himself. 
God is the absolute /.”* Ido not pretend to at- 
tach ideas to all this, though part of it is but too 
intelligible. But I give it in the words of the 
French writer, who has been esteemed the clear- 
est expositor of the system. 

The Fichtean philosophical fashion of the day 
gave place, before long, to the kindred but different 
one of Schelling, to whose yet more lofty genius, 
in the opinion of his admirers, “we owe the 
completion, and the most important victories, of 
this revolution in philosophy.” + Fichte, notwith- 
standing the prevailing language of his theory, 
had shrunk from the naked statement of that result 
of it, which goes to the annihilation of every thing 
in the universe independent of the cognitive sub- 
ject, and had pretended to point out some shadowy 


* Introduction, &c., Lecture 12. (p. 398.) The translator (H. G. Lin- 
berg) of this work, finds cause to say, — not ironically, but in sober state- 
ment, — * Fichte has, in arriving at this point, indeed reached the very 
summit of the pyramid of human science.” (p. 454, Edit. Boston, 1832.) 

t Coleridge, ubi supra, p. 97. 


400 INFIDELITY 1N GERMANY. 


distinction between the thinker and his thought. 
Schelling, pursuing the idea, that science ought to 
repose on the original unity of that which knows 
and that which is known, “arrived at the system 
of the absolute identity of the subject and object, or 
the system of the indifference of the different, in 
which consists the being of the absolute, that is, 
God.” * According to him, “ ‘The Absolute (which 
often also is called Zhe Divine, or simply God ) is 
neither finite nor infinite, neither real nor imagin- 
ary, neither being nor knowledge, neither object 
nor subject, neither nature nor spirit. But it is 
that wherein all these antitheses, all distinction and 
variety, are put away. It is the absolute being 
and knowing in complete unity; the absolute 
indifference of all difference; or the absolute iden- 
tity of the real and the ideal. It is at once One 
and Manifold, or the absolute One and All.” + 

In quoting this jargon, I do not profess to under- 
stand it. It is essentially, | conceive, no subject 
for intelligence. But let us make another attempt 
with the help of the words of an English writer, 
who was describing it with no unfriendly design. 
In a sketch of Schelling’s philosophy, ascribed 
to the eminent Scottish metaphysician Sir William 
Hamilton, it is said, “In the act of knowledge, 
which, after Fichte, Schelling calls the Intellectual 
Intuition, there exists no distinction of subject and 


* Tennemann, ubi supra, § 399. (s. 510.) 
t Krug, dllgemeines Handworterbuch der Philosophischen Wissen- 
schaften, Band 3, p. 593. 


GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK HEGEL. 401 


object, —no contrast of knowledge and existence. 
All difference is lost in absolute indifference, all 
plurality in absolute unity. The intuition itself, 
reason, and the absolute, are identical. ‘The abso- 
lute exists only as known by reason, and reason 
knows only as being itself the absolute.” * Of 
course, this system sacrifices human individuality, 
as well as individual divine existence ; and a further 
consequence is, that there can be no future exis- 
tence of the individual human soul. ‘The philoso- 
phy of Schelling knows no future life for man, ex- 
cept one, in which the attributes of the soul are 
absorbed again into the universal mass of being ; 
‘‘a kind of immortality,” well observes Madame 
de Staél,” which sadly resembles death, since phys- 
ical death itself is nothing but universal nature re- 
claiming the gifts she had made to the individual.” + 

This revived form of the old Oriental pantheism, 
—or atheism, for, as to the choice of the name, it 
is unimportant, — was destined to undergo one fur- 
ther improvement, or, as I should perhaps better 
phrase it, to advance one further step in respect to 
explicit avowal of its character. Of Hegel, the suc- 
cessor of Fichte in his Professorship at Berlin, the 
‘¢ Conversations-Lexicon,” the popular Encyclope- 
dia of Germany, says, that, ‘“‘in contradistinction 
from the subjective idealism, to which Fichte had 
been brought by Kant, and from the objective 
idealism of Schelling, the theory of Hegel takes the 


* Edinburgh Review, Vol. L. p. 208. 
t Del Allemagne, Partie 3e. Chap. 7e. (Tome II. p. 272 Edit. Paris, 1835.) 
Vou. II. 51 


402. INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


eround of an absolute idealism.” * According to 
Hegel, the only real existence consists of ideas.t 
This is true of God, as muchas of any other existence. 
“The being of God,”— these are the intelligible 
words of one of his distinguished disciples and 
expounders, Marheineke, — “is nothing whatever 
except the determination, or knowledge, of that 
being.” { Says another, Rixner, “ The knowledge 
of the absolute identity of God and the universe, 
this is Reason.” { But the pupils went not at all 
beyond the master ; rather, if possible, the reverse 
was true. Says Hegel, expressing some reluctance 
to announce the conclusion, by reason of its para- 
doxical appearance, but still asseverating his perfect 
sincerity, “ Being and not being, something and 
nothing, are the same.” { There is no exception, of 
course, made for the Source of being. With God it 
is, as with all else which has been supposed to exist. 
And lest any uncertainty should be left as to the 
legitimate character of this corollary, a writer just 
now quoted has these words; “In this universal 
indeterminateness, God is the unintelligent, the 
steady, absolute unity of what is and what is 
not, and every thing, which can be affirmed of God, 
can just as much be denied.” { In plain English 
words, the proposition, which asserts a God, is an 
insoluble, unmeaning contradiction. 


* Band V.s. 142. + Krug, ubi supra, B. II. s. 374. 

t I take these quotations from the Boston reprint (pp. 28—30) of a 
learned article on “ Transcendentalism” in the ‘“ Princeton Review ”’ for 
January, 1839. 


JOHN AUGUSTUS ERNESTI. 4.03 


These are some of the great names of the succes- 
sive recent schools of German metaphysics, to which 
we sometimes hear the sane and sober Anglo- 
Saxon mind invited to resort for instruction. ‘The 
understandings, which were capable of being attrac- 
ted and beguiled by such a philosophy, were of 
course subject to be infected by it in respect to its 
applications to theology in general, and to Chris- 
tianity in particular ; and while, on the one hand, 
many, adopting far the more consistent course, have, 
in attaching themselves to these doctrines, aban- 
doned the idea of any reconciliation of them with 
Christianity, in others the most extraordinary hybrid 
unions have taken place, between the profession of 
them, and of what has still preferred to call itself 
by the name of faith in the Gospel. 

But, while what has been briefly described was 
the course of opinion in the department of meta- 
physical science, changes in the same country, in 
respect to the doctrines and methods of the science 
and art of Biblical criticism, as of course they 
were to a great extent the effect, were also, to some 
extent, the cause, of changes of opinion respecting 
the authority of Christianity, and, keeping pace 
with these latter, serve in some degree to indicate 
them from step to step. The long-received princi- 
ples of interpretation of the sacred books had been 
expounded in a more methodical, precise, and satis- 
factory developement, and with some qualifications 
and improvements, by John Augustus Ernesti of 
Leipzig, in his work in Latin, entitled “ Prepar- 


404, INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


ation [or Education] of the New Testament Inter- 
preter,” first published in 1761, a judicious and 
useful treatise, which still holds a high place among 
manuals of the kind. LErnesti’s fundamental doc- 
trine of interpretation, — obvious enough, certainly, 
yet requiring, as experience has shown, to be en- 
forced, — was, that, in the New Testament as in 
other books, the expositor’s business was to look 
for the one meaning intended to be expressed by 
the writer, —a meaning which he called by the 
different names of the literal, grammatical, logical, 
or justorical sense; and that, as the authors of the 
New ‘Testament must have intended, like the 
writers of any other book, to be understood by 
their readers, they should be regarded as designing 
to use the common arbitrary instrument of language 
in the same manner, under the same rules and 
conditions, as other writers ; —in other words, that 
their forms of speech are to be understood and 
explained, just as if they had been used in respect 
to any other subject, regard only being had in this, 
as it would be in other cases, to peculiarities of 
style arising from any causes peculiar to the case in 
hand. 

A new era in the science and art of interpreta- 
tion was introduced by the more celebrated John 
Solomon Semler of Halle, whose work in German, 
entitled ‘“ Preparation for Theological Exposition,” 
was published about the same time with that of 
Ernesti, and was followed, through a series of years, 
by others in the same department. ‘The labors of 


JOHN SOLOMON SEMLER. A405 


Semler were particularly directed to the investiga- 
tion of the history of the sacred books, and of that 
collateral knowledge which would more {fully dis- 
close their intended sense, by throwing light on the 
occasions and circumstances of their composition, 
the contemporaneous events, opinions, and customs, 
to which their writers would be likely to allude ; 
all that knowledge, in short, which helps to put the 
expositor of a later day in the position of a contem- 
porary reader. He also pushed his inquiries far 
into the history of opinions of Jewish and Pagan 
origin, with the view of showing how they had 
affected the opinions of the church, and what was 
the actual source of doctrines, which had acquired 
currency among Christians, while they were incapa- 
ble of being defended by a just exposition of their 
sacred books. 

There is no occasion for us to pursue further the 
history of the scientific treatment of the principles 
of Biblical interpretation by the German writers. 
What has been brought to your notice is sufficient 
for our present purpose. It is obvious that the 
wide range of investigation proposed to the Biblical 
interpreter in the system of Semler, — while its 
results, in the proper hands, would richly contribute 
to what every Christian must strongly desire, a 
fuller and clearer illustration and comprehension of 
the sacred records, — would, on the other hand, be 
likely to lead to, and aid, very indefinite and inexact 
methods of reasoning concerning their sense. In 
fact, the higher criticism, as it is called, having the 


4.06 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


advantage of a certain air of insinuation, as well as 
offering an attractive promise to an ambitious inge- 
nuity, has been of late years an instrument largely 
used in the service of unbelief; a fact, however, 
which has no right to occasion any sort of appre- 
hension, as there is no one of its methods, that 
have been successively resorted to for this purpose, 
which as yet has been employed with any perma- 
nent success, and they are unavoidably so limited 
in number that they must soon be exhausted. 1 
shall conclude this Lecture with a short account of 
the last novelty of this kind, that has obtained 
much notoriety ; the work entitled the “ Life of 
Jesus,” by Dr. David Frederick Strauss, first pub- 
lished at Tubingen in the year 1835; a book which 
has gone through at least three editions, and created 
a vast sensation in its native country, though one of 
its German critics says of it, that, “‘ had it been pub- 
lished in England, it would have been forgotten in 
a couple of months.” 

His philosophical opinions are nowhere announced 
by Strauss in his work ; but he is understood to be 
a Pantheist of the school of Hegel, and the tone 
of thought which pervades it confirms that idea. 
This would of course determine him in disbelief of 
Christianity ; and to the higher criticism, so called, 
he has had recourse for the means of attack. ‘“ ‘The 
evangelical history is a succession of instructive 
fables.”? This is the doctrine of Strauss, and his 
method of establishing it is by a minute exhibition 
of all the critical objections that can be raised 


DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS, 4.07 


against the New ‘Testament history. He had 
some acquaintance with the writings of the English 
infidels of the last century, as appears by his rapid 
review of them ; * and he has largely repeated obser- 
vations which they had made on supposed incred- 
ibilities and discrepancies in the Gospel histories. 
Particularly, his extensive discussion of the miracu- 
lous naratives is but a repetition and expansion of 
that by Woolston of the same subject. 

What was new in his plan consists in this; that, 
whereas others had used the argument to the end 
of establishing a general charge against the credit 
of the evangelical narratives, the object of Strauss 
was more specific. It was, to prove that the whole 
history of our Lord, as related in the Gospels, 
is mythic ; that is, that it is a kind of imaginative 
amplification of certain vague and slender tradi- 
tions, the source of which it is now difficult to 
trace. ‘These myths are partly historical, and partly 
philosophical, formed with the design of developing 
an ideal character of Jesus, and of harmonizing that 
character with the Jewish notions of the Messiah. 
To use the language of his French editor (for the 
two thick volumes have been translated into French), 
‘¢ According to him, Jesus, having excited in his life, 
and left behind at his death, a belief in his being 
the Messiah, and the type of a Messiah already ex- 
isting in the sacred books and traditions of the 
Jewish people, there was formed, among the first 
Christians, a history of the life of Jesus, in which 


* Leben Jesu, § 5 (B. I. s. 15 et seq.) 


408 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


particulars of his doctrine and fate were combined 
with that type, and which was handed down with 
successive modifications till the time when it was 
definitively fixed in the Canonical Gospels. ””* 

The proper way of maintaining that ground would 
obviously have been, to begin with the attempt, so 
repeatedly made, and as often proving unsuccessful, 
to unsettle by historical, investigation the proof of 
the authenticity and integrity of the four Gospels. 
I will not say, that, till this was done, nothing 
could be done; for | freely allow it to be possible 
that the contents of a book should be such, — in 
other words, the internal evidence against it so 
strong, —as to overbalance very weighty external 
proof of its authenticity. But, — unless the adverse 
argument from internal evidence alone could be made 
out with a force, which a judicious adversary would 
hardly pretend that it could, in the present case, — 
the course to be expected and required of him cer- 
tainly would be, to show some weakness in the 
favorable external evidence. Indeed, in any event, 
this might be expected of him, inasmuch as proofs 
from different sources, bearing upon a given truth, 
are apt, when fully scrutinized, to be found in 
agreement; and their apparent contradiction, what- 
ever be the apparent strength of either, is something 
to create distrust in the conclusion to which it 
invites. 

But this attempt, so important in its bearing upon 


* Pie de Jésus, p. ii. 


DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS. 4.09 


the main question, Strauss can scarcely be said to 
have made. His whole discussion of it occupies 
only ten or twelve pages of a work spread over 
more than fifteen hundred.* It consists, in part, of 
an argument to prove, that nothing concerning the 
authorship of the Gospels can be safely inferred 
from the fact of their bearing at present the names 
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, —as if any 
friend would be disposed to put the question upon 
that ground ; — nor does it furnish any thing which I 
conceive the most partial reader would incline to 
regard as a contribution to the earlier attempts at 
invalidating the ample testimony in behalf of the 
authenticity of those books. The author appears 
to be hastening towards that part of his work, for 
which he had more taste, and had made better pre- 
paration ; and indeed, so imperfectly settled were his 
own opinions on this fundamental point, that, in 
the preface to his third edition, he says that, with 
the aid of certain writings of two of his countrymen, 
whom he names, he had renewed his examination 
of the fourth Gospel, that of John, and that this 
new survey had staggered him as to the force of 
the doubts which he had entertained respecting 
the authenticity of that Gospel. “It is not,” he 
says, “that I am satisfied that the fourth Gos- 
pel is authentic, but I am no longer satisfied that it 
is not so.” + 


* Leben Jesu, § 13, (Dritte Auflage, Tubingen, 1838, B. I. s. 75, et 
seq.) 
t Ibid. s. v. 
Vou. II. 52 


410 INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


Connected with these hints respecting the origin 
of the Gospels, is another argument in the same 
section of the work under our notice. ‘The Christ- 


Pd Perea py believer knows but one thing. It is, 
that whatever is told him by the received sacred 
books, took place literally as described ..... If his 


horizon is sufficiently extended for him to look at 
his own religion by the side of others, and compare 
it with them, his judgment takes this form; 
‘What the Pagans relate of their gods, the Mo- 
hammedans of their prophet, is false; on the con- 
trary, what Scripture relates of God, of Christ, and 
other divine persons is true.’ ..... But such an 
assumption is but the fruit of the individual’s 
restraint within the bounds of the belief in which 
he has been reared, of his incapacity to pronounce 
any thing more discriminating concerning them than 
an affirmation of the one, and a negation of the 
other;—a_ prejudice this, which is without any 
scientific value, and which is dissipated by the 
slightest extension of historical view. Let us but 
place ourselves in another religious communion. 
The faithful Mussulman thinks he can find no truth 
but in his Koran, and sees nothing but fables in 
the greater part of the Bible. The Jew recognises 
no divine authority except in the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament ; he rejects it altogether in the New. 
It was so too with believers in the ancient Pagan 
schemes. Who then is right? All, alike? That 
cannot be; for they deny each other’s claims. 
Who then? Every one says that the truth is his. 


DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS. AY 


Their pretensions are all equally good. Who then 
shall decide?” * In short, because opposite pre- 
tensions are set up, and because the false (as they 
must perforce do, in order to obtain credit) mimic 
the true, therefore no one of them can _ possibly 
deserve any reliance; a principle of judgment, 
certainly, which he who should apply it to the com- 
mon concerns of life, would, to say the least, get 
little credit for his wisdom. My hearers perceive 
that this is the same argument, which attracted our 
notice as presented at large by Hume, Gibbon, and 
Volney; an argument, to which, having nothing 
to add to what was then remarked upon it, I have 
now no occasion to return. 

Proceeding to the body of his work, this critic, 
in three books, relating respectively to the Birth 
and Childhood, the Public Life, and the Death 
and Resurrection of Jesus, examines and dissects, 
in minute parcels, the history of which the Gospels 
are composed, in a diligent, learned, and ingenious 
endeavour to show, concerning the several portions 
of the narrative, that they are singly inconsistent 
in their parts, and otherwise incredible; that they 
are inconsistent with one another; and, finally, 
what their real probable origin was, in . doctrines 
or narratives of the Old ‘Testament, or in other 
sources. 

The last of these three points is of the nature of 
illustration rather than argument. ‘The argument 


" Leben Jesu, § 13. (B. I. s. 72.) 


412, INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


rests altogether in the other two, which have been 
already treated at some length, in connexion with 
the objections of Hume and of Paine. As to the 
incredibility of single statements on account of their 
own nature, the writer assumes that their being 
miraculous, if true, is enough to fix on them the 
character of incredibility ;* an assumption of the 
utmost consequence, but which he produces no 
reasoning to sustain (carrying it with him rather as 
a deduction from his pantheistic metaphysics), and 
which has already been brought to view, at least as 
often as any other topic, in the course of this dis- 
cussion, with the purpose of showing it to be utterly 
hostile to the first principles of Natural Religion. 
When the incredibility of single statements is 
argued from the alleged inconsistency of one with 
another, when compared together each as a whole, 
or from that of different parts of the same state- 
ments respectively, the argument is the same with 
that attempted by some of the ancient opponents, 
as Celsus and Porphyry, and by several of the 
moderns, particularly Voltaire and Paine, though, 
no doubt, exhibited by the present writer with much 
greater fulness and elaboration. In remarking on 
the objections of this sort by Paine, I brought some 
of them particularly to view. While the work of 
Strauss contains a much larger collection, it appears 
to me that Paine had, with a true judgment, select- 
ed the most plausible; so that, if he had no suc- 


* Leben Jesu, § 14 (B. I. s. 108.) 


DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS. ALS 


cess, it seems not hazardous to conclude that there 
is none to be reaped in that field. After the 
specimens given in treating of Paine’s work, my 
audience will scarcely desire that I should pursue 
the minute criticism, by which alone, from their 
nature, such objections can be exposed ; nor could 
all those of Strauss, far fetched as are many of his 
materials, be surveyed with just comment except 
in a work as large as his own. 

These two points, of the authorship of the Gos- 
pel narratives, and the credibility of their contents, 
are clearly the material ones. The other, respect- 
ing those sources in the minds of their writers, to 
which, supposing them to be without foundation in 
fact, they are to be referred, opens a sphere for 
illustration, but scarcely for argument. It is not 
capable of contributing any thing, —at all events, 
any thing but what is quite vague and unsubstan- 
tial, —to sustain the argument on the other two; 
nor, till the infidel side of the other two, one or 
both, is proved, is any place opened for the investi- 
gations to which the third would lead. It may be 
remarked, however, in a word, that, among a great 
variety of singularly fanciful hypotheses concerning 
the elements of this or that narrative, which the 
evangelists have recorded in the plainest simplicity 
of truth, the Christian expositor will sometimes find 
the suggestion of coincidences between the New 
Testament and the Old, which have appeared to 
his own mind under very different aspects. For 
instance ; years before I had any acquaintance with 


Ad Ay INFIDELITY IN GERMANY. 


the work of Strauss, | was in the habit of point- 
ing out, to those whose studies in the New Testa- 
ment I was assisting, the resemblance between the 
miraculous feeding of the thousands by Jesus, and 
the supplies of food to the Israelites when under 
the conduct of Moses in the wilderness, as being 
designed by Jesus to intimate his claim to the 
character of that ‘“ prophet like unto Moses,” who, 
Moses had predicted, should in due time appear. 
The use which the German critic makes of the 
resemblance is, to suggest that the record in the Old 
Testament gave the hint of a fiction for the New. 

There is perhaps nothing in this extraordinary 
book suited to occasion more surprise than the 
view which its author professes to have taken of it. 
‘The author is satisfied,” says he, in the Preface to 
his first edition,* “that the internal essence of the 
Christian faith stands completely independent of 
his critical researches. ‘The supernatural birth of 
Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension 
to heaven, remain eternal truths, notwithstanding 
the doubts expressed concerning the reality of those 
events as historical facts. ‘This certainty alone can 
give to our criticism repose and dignity, distinguish- 
ing it from the literal interpretations of earlier 
times, — interpretations which, aiming to overthrow 
religious truth along with historical facts, were 
necessarily tainted with a character of frivolity. I 
shall show that the dogmatic sense of the life of 
Jesus has suffered no injury under my hand. 


* DB, ks 8s 1X: 


DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS. ALD5 


Meanwhile let the reader consent to regard the 
coolness and tranquillity, with which my criticism, 
in the progress of the work, undertakes methods 
apparently full of danger, as indicating my firm 
conviction that I am offering no injury to the Chris- 
tian faith.” I know no reason authorizing us to 
say that he used this language in irony. If he did, 
it will cease to have the extraordinary peculiarity, 
which, seriously understood, it possesses. If not, 
it will help to solve the problem of the book. It 
will serve to read its own riddle. The mind, which 
understands itself to be offering no injury whatever 
to Christianity, when it labors to show the history 
of its founder and its foundation to be all a fable, 
subdues the surprise we are tempted to feel when 
we find it employing its powers against the record 
of that religion, in the use of such arguments as 
are many that here are urged. 

My next and concluding lecture will pursue the 
subject of recent infidelity in Germany and else- 
‘where. 


LECTURE XXIV. 


RECENT STATE OF OPINION IN GERMANY AND FRANCE. 


In giving an account, in the latter part of my 
last Lecture, of that elaborate extravaganza of Ger- 
man infidelity embodied in Dr. Strauss’s work 
called the “ Life of Jesus,” I somewhat anticipated 
the succession of events in order to arrive at that 
latest famous form of assault upon Christianity, 
which has grown out of an atheistic philosophy, 
combined with a criticism, of great pretensions, but’ 
doing its unhappy office with a total disregard of all 
sound principles of the art of interpretation of 
language. If the testimony of either friends or 
foes is to be trusted respecting the condition of 
opinion in that country, the German mind at the 
present day is as much incapacitated for any just 
consideration of Christianity, by a revival of the 
old pantheism of the mystical East, as was the 
French mind in the latter half of the last century, 
by the grosser and more plain-spoken atheism of 


YOUNG GERMANY. 4.17 


Diderot, Von Holbach, and their associates. Strauss 
himself, in a recent composition, entitled “The 
‘Transient and the Permanent in Christianity,” says, 
‘From an impulse, which, as a miasma, has spread, 
especially over all Germany, monuments to great 
men and lofty spirits arise on every side. This 
disposition is not a secret of the philosophers only ; 
as an obscure instinct, it has become the universal 
spirit of the age. J... . A new Paganism, or, it 
may be, a new Catholicism, has come over Pro- 
testant Germany. Men are no longer satisfied with 
one incarnation of God. They desire, after the 
manner of the Indians, a series of repeated avatars. 

...+. The tendency of the age is to honor the 
revelation of God in all the spirits which have 
wrought, with life and creative power, on mankind. 
The only worship,—we may deplore it, or we 
may praise it, deny it we cannot, — the only wor- 
ship which remains for the cultivated classes of this 
age, from the religious decline of the last, is the 
worship of genius.” * Henry Heine, the highest 
perhaps, on the whole, of all names in the estima- 
tion of what is called Young Germany, says in his 
‘‘ Allemagne,” ‘The national faith of Europe, but 
more at the North than the South, was pantheistic.” 
‘Man abandons not willingly what has been dear 
to his fathers.” ‘Germany is at present the fer- 
tile soil of Pantheism. That is the religion of our 


“I take this quotation from the Boston reprint (pp. 90, 91,) of an article 
on ‘The School of Hegel” in the « Princeton Review” for January 
1840. 


Vou. II. 53 


A418 GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 


greatest thinkers, of our best artists, and Deism is 
destroyed there in theory. You do not hear it 
spoken of, but every one knows it. Pantheism is 
the public secret of Germany. We have, in fact, 
outgrown Deism. ..... We are of age, and need 
no fatherly care. We are not the handy-work of 
any great mechanic. Deism is a good religion 
for slaves, for children, for Genevese, for watch- 
makers.” * 

But to go back a little way, to a time when the 
influence of a thoroughly vicious philosophy upon 
Christian faith was less developed and less control- 
ling. In the rapid revolutions of sentiment m Ger- 
many, the Rationalist party (so called), which, 
twenty-five years ago, when many of us were coming 
on the stage, was so considerable, is said to be now 
nearly extinct. With minor diversities of opinion 
among themselves, the Rationalists, — or Naturalists, 
as they were otherwise named, in distinction from 
Supernaturalists, — occupied the same ground in 
relation to Christianity as that class of English De- 
ists, which is represented by Morgan ; nor do their 
main views respecting our religion call for any 
remark additional to what were formerly made in 
treating the works of that writer. ‘They esteemed 
Christianity as, on the whole, a pure system of 
doctrine, and a right and profitable directory of 
conduct ; but they denied its miraculous origin and 
supernatural authority. 


“Tome I. pp. 19, 32, 104,105. (Edit. Paris, 1835. 
P 


IMMANUEL KANT. AQ 


Professing to respect the religion while they 
ascribed to it only a human origin, its apparent 
claim to supernatural authority was, of course, if 
they would see the question to the bottom, a 
point to be somehow disposed of by them. ‘The 
attempt to dispose of it was made in different ways. 

The method of Kant was one, exhibited in a 
~ work, in which he proposed what he called a “‘ Moral 
Exposition of the Holy Scriptures.” It was men- 
tioned in my last lecture that Kant professed a 
belief in God, and when his great work, the 
«Critique of Pure Reason,” was appealed to as 
sustaining the opposite opinion, produced another, 
entitled the ‘Critique of Practical Reason,” in 
which he inserted an argument for Theism, gen- 
erally regarded, by all parties, as an incongruity in 
the scheme. As to the point now before us, 
Kant’s doctrine was, that the New ‘Testament re- 
cords were not to be interpreted as history, but 
were to be regarded as having an allegorical 
meaning, as far as they had any. His view ac- 
corded, as to its main principle of interpretation, 
with that proposed by Woolston, of which I for- 
merly treated, but differed from it in this par- 
ticular, that Kant represented the alleged allegories 
as containing not at all a speculative, but only a 
moral, practical sense. In terms, of which | en- 
deavour strictly to retain the sense, and at the same 
time to express it in Janguage simple and intelligi- 
ble, he maintained that the Christian records are to 
be made useful by the application which the inter- 


420 GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 


preter himself makes of them, and that thus in 
judicious hands they may be made a fund of moral 
instruction. 

‘From all religions, ancient and modern, deposited 
in sacred books, have flowed,” he says, “‘ the same 
results; that is, considerate and well-intentioned 
teachers of the people have made such accommo- 
dations of them as to bring them into harmony with 
the prevailing principles of moral belief. ‘Thus 
the moralists of Greece and Rome treated their 
fabulous theology, and finally learned how to ex- 
pound the grossest polytheism as a symbolical 
representation of the qualities of one sole Deity, and 
to develope a mystical sense in the deeds of their 
divinities, — vicious as they often were, — and in 
the most extravagant reveries of their poets; to the 
end that the popular belief, which it would not have 
been prudent to destroy, might be brought to some 
approximation to a just rule of duty. ‘The custom 
of such interpretation is universal. ‘The Moham- 
medans labor to fix a mystical sense upon the 
voluptuous descriptions of their paradise, and the 
Hindoos, at least the more enlightened of them, do 
the like with their Vedas. And in the same way 
should the documents of the Christian religion, the 
books of the Old and New ‘Testament, receive, by 
a free interpretation, a sense such as accords with 
the universal and practical Jaws of a pure and 
rational religion; and such an interpretation, even 
though it should do apparent violence, or even real 
violence, to the text, deserves to be preferred to a 


IMMANUEL KANT. 421 


close interpretation, such as has been often em- 
ployed. ‘Thus the fierce denunciations of enemies, 
in several Psalms, may be applied to the appetites 
and passions which we ought always to endeavour 
to tread under our feet; and thus [an illustration 
this, whieh removes all obscurity from his meaning] 
the wonders related in the New Testament, of the 
heavenly origin of Jesus, and his peculiar relation to 
God, are figurative representations of the ideal 
of a humanity to which the Deity is reconciled.” * 

“¢ Kant,” says Strauss, who criticizes him, “ thinks 
that he vindicates this method of interpretation 
from the reproach of disingenuousness, when he 
says, that it does not maintain that the sense fixed 
by it upon the sacred books was actually in the 
minds of their writers. This is an inquiry which 
it does not care to institute; it only claims a right 
to put upon those books such a sense as it finds 
suitable to give.” t In short, the theory is this; 
The sacred books are to be made useful by a judi- 
cious interpretation ; and that interpretation, so to 
call it, consists not in examining the books in order 
to ascertain and then receive the sense of their 
writers, but in connecting with them, by force of 
imagination, some foreign sense, which their con- 
tents in a figurative application may serve to illus- 
trate to the reader’s mind. ‘Their writers are not 
to be regarded as speaking with authority, nor even 
are the books to be consulted as containing a wholly 
or partially true record. 


* Strauss, Leben Jesu, § 7 (B. I. ss. 29, 30.) t Ibid. (s. 31.) 


422, GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION, 


Of the Rationalist school of interpreters, no name 
perhaps had for a time a greater celebrity than that 
of Paulus, professor of the Oriental Languages in 
the University of Jena, where he published, in 
1800, his ‘“‘ Commentary on the New Testament ” 
in four volumes. His method of disposing of the 
miraculous relations in the New Testament was 
altogether different from that of Kant. ‘The first 
duty,” says Paulus, “ of one who would thoroughly 
master the New Testament history is, to distinguish 
in it between what is fact, and what is only the 
writer’s judgment upon fact. A fact is that which 
has been experienced or perceived by some one 
standing in relations to it; a judgment is the 
construction which that person or others have put 
upon the fact in ‘referring it to a supposed 
cause. ‘These two constituent parts are so easily 
blended and confounded in the apprehensions, both 
of the witnesses of a fact and of subsequent nar- 
rators, that often the judgment and the fact can no 
longer be severed, and both go down to posterity 
as one, on the same authority. ‘This confusion is 
particularly apparent in the historical books of the 
New ‘Testament ; for in the time of Jesus there was 
a controlling propensity to refer every striking in- 
cident to an invisible and superhuman cause. ‘The 
principal care, then, of him who would ascertain 
the veritable facts preserved in the New Testament, 
should be, to separate the two elements, so closely 
conjoined, and yet so different in nature and im- 
port, and to disengage the naked fact from the 


HENRY GOTTLOB PAULUS. 423 


opinions of individuals and of the time, which en- 
close it as the shell does a nut. And this must be 
done by carrying one’s self back, in imagination, as 
completely as possible, to the theatre of the events 
and the point of view which the time affords, and 
in that position endeavouring to fill out the primitive 
outline, by the supposition of accessory circum- 
stances, which the narrator himself, occupied by 
his bias toward the supernatural, has often neglect- 
ed to indicate.” * 

In conformity with these principles, Paulus pro- 
ceeds to dissect the Gospel history in his “« Com- 
mentary,” and in his more recent work entitled the 
“Life of Jesus.” He admits an historical basis 
for the facts ; but resolves every thing supernatural 
in the accounts, as we have them, into false per- 
ceptions or opinions of the narrators. Jesus walk- 
ing on the water of the lake of Gennesareth, for 
instance, is to be understood as having waded in 
it, or walked along its beach ; and the narrative of 
his Transfiguration is the result of the excited im- 
agination of his disciples, who saw him conversing 
with two strangers on a mountain, while his person 
was illumined by the first beams of the dawn. 
Paulus was not alone in this hopeless scheme of 
misinterpretation. Bahrdt had preceded him in an 
outline of the plan, and Venturini followed with a 
set of conjectures, of the same character as to their 
bearing on the main question, though considerably 


* Strauss, Leben Jesu, § 6, (B. I. ss. 24, 25-) 


AQA, GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 


different in detail. But the plan of reducing the 
Gospel history to a succession of narratives by men 
honest in their representations, but mistaken as to 
what they represented,—a plan seductive in its 
first idea, — proved in its application altogether too 
unmanageable. ‘The fantastic suppositions to which 
it had to resort, imposed a much harder task upon 
a reasonable faith, than the miracles which they 
proposed to supersede; and it has not, as far as I 
know, a living defender of any considerable name. 

Schleiermacher, the late celebrated Professor at 
Berlin, was the head of a school which appears to 
have died, as it began, with him; as I find it stated 
ina recent letter of De Wette, — his admirer, though 
but partially his disciple, —that only one of his 
scholars, in a Swiss city, now represents him in the 
high places of instruction.* Schleiermacher was 
deep in the pantheistic metaphysics; and they set- 
tled the character of his theology. “ Religion,” ac- 
cording to him, ‘is the sense of the union of the 
individual with the universe, with Nature, with 
the One and All. Its sphere is sentiment, feeling. 
It has nothing to do with belief, action, or morality. 
It is independent of the idea of a personal God. 
The idea of a personal God is mere mythology. 
Faith in and desire for personal immortality are 
wholly irreligious. ‘The aim of religion is the an- 
nihilation of one’s own personality, a living in the 
One and All, a becoming, as far as possible, one with 


* De Wette’s Theodore, Boston Translation, p. xxxvii. 


FREDERICK DANIEL ERNEST SCHLEIERMACHER. 425 


the universe.” * As to Christianity, this writer, 
like the others who have been mentioned, disre- 
gards the historical proof of it as a direct miracu- 
lous revelation ; but, as far as he proposes to recog- 
nise and use it, he legitimates it, —to employ a 
phrase of the new  philosophy,—by a reverse 
process of his own, starting from the point of per- 
sonal consciousness. ‘As a member of the Chris- 
tian community,” says he, “I am conscious to 
myself of the annihilation of my proneness to sin, 
and of my share in absolute perfection ; — that is to 
say, belonging to the Christian association, | am 
sensible to the influences exerted over me by a 
principle sinless and perfect. These influences 
cannot proceed from the Christian community itself, 
in the sense of being a result of the mutual action 
of its members on each other ; for sin and imper- 
fection reside in every one of them, and a congre- 
gation of impure beings never gave birth to any 
thing pure. It is necessary then to ascribe this to 
the influence of a person, who, on the one hand, 
was himself sinless and perfect, and who, on the 
other, sustained a relation to the Christian commu- 
nity, by force of which those qualities might be 
communicated to it from his person ; and, since the 
community could not have existed as such previous- 
ly to this communication, it follows that he must 


* Ueber der Religion, ss. 48 et seq. 58, 54, 21, et seg. 110 et seg. 59, 118 
et seq. (Edit. 4. Berlin, 1831.) I was directed to these passages by the 
references in the Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity, by Mr. 
Norton, whose words (p. 44.) are used in the above abstract. 


Vou. II. 54 


426 GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 
have been its founder.” * As Christians, we are 
sensible, in short, that something has operated upon 
us; and, reasoning from effect to cause, we pass 
from this operation to an influence of Christ, and 
from that influence to himself, who possessed the 
power of producing on us the effect in question. 
This reasoning backwards from an observed state 
of a Christian mind to an influence of Christ, and 
from his influence to his existence, is certainly an 
extraordinary method of proving his existence ; 
extraordinary on account of the possible analysis 
which it supposes of the nature of the sentiment 
experienced, making it capable of being the basis 
of such a conclusion in respect to a remote matter 
of fact, as well as for other reasons not less ob- 
vious. Still, as far as we have yet gone, the con- 
clusion seems to be, that there was in fact such a 
person as the reputed founder of Christianity, and 
that his life and fate were such as the Gospels 
record. But Schleiermacher, whose name, meaning 
veil-maker, has been remarked upon as not inap- 
plicable to his habit of using language, does not 
appear elsewhere to have satisfied himself of that 
truth. He cannot blind himself to the fact, that 
his method of proof falls very far short of evincing 
that Christ was and did all that the Christian scrip- 
tures attribute to him. And, to be consistent with 
his scheme, he maintains, that neither the miracles 
of Jesus, nor the facts of his resurrection and 


* Strauss, Leben Jesu, § 146, (B. II. s. 743.) 


WILLIAM MARTIN LEBERECHT DE WETTE. 427 


ascension, are any essential part of the Christian 
faith. It is with manifest correctness, at all events, 
that Strauss remarks, at the close of a criticism upon 
his scheme, that it was justly “charged with sus- 
taining the inference of no more than an ideal, that 
is, a fabulous, Christ; ..... for, in order to produce 
the effects which Schleiermacher ascribes to Christ, 
no more than a mental conception of him was ne- 
cessary, and indeed no other was possible, agree- 
ably to the principles of this theologian respecting 
the relation between God [that is, what he called 
God,] and the world, — between the natural and 
the supernatural.* ” 

In such a survey as this, brief as it is, it would 
be impossible to pass over the name of De Wette, 
a name perhaps more extensively known in this 
country than that of any other living German the- 
ologian. In a Preface to a recent translation of 
one of his smaller works, he is said to “ represent 
better than any other author with whom we are 
acquainted, not the present tendencies of German 
theology, but its present average condition ; and, 
standing very near the centre of speculation, to be 
an author well adapted to convey to American 
readers a general idea of the state of German opin- 
ions.” + But it seems to me that this medium 
position is only attained by mutual contradictions 
in different parts of his writings, which represent 
him as at one time favoring opinions and modes 


* Strauss, Leben Jesu § 146. (B. II. s, 752.) + Theodore, Vol. 1. p. xix, 


428 GERMAN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 


of speculation, which at another time he appears 
to condemn. In another notice, by an American 
admirer, [ am equally surprised to find it said, 
that “his charm lies in his genial, flowing style, 
and his strong common sense, joined with great 
poetic sensibility, and giving clearness and beauty 
to the most perplexing topics.” * On the contrary, 
it appears to me, that what the reader particularly 
and perpetually misses in his works, is not only the 
strong common sense which leads to correct opin- 
ions, but the clearness which may characterize a 
statement and defence of erroneous ones. Indeed, 
so difficult have 1 found it to make out, within tol- 
erable limits, any description of his heterogeneous 
views, which should not be liable to some exception 
drawn from some insulated passage of his works, 
that I prefer to avoid, as far as may be, the hazard 
of doing him injustice, by giving a few periods, in 
which, with perhaps as much precision as anywhere 
else, he presents his idea of the authority of Chris- 
tianity, and then availing myself of representations 
which show how it has been understood by others. 

‘The new rational theology,” says De Wette 
himself, ‘* must accomplish the solution of the prob- 
lem of producing a living recognition of faith in 
its independence of metaphysical and_ historical 
knowledge ; so that, finally, without resolving the 
events in the history of Jesus into what is merely 
ideal, it may cause them to be received in their 
ideal significance as conveying ideas of faith, not 


* Christian Examiner, Vol. XXIV. p. 188. 


WILLIAM MARTIN DE WETTE. AQI 


resting the truth of Christian faith upon common, 
naked, historical truth, but confining the historical 
proof to the few essential events, and leaving the rest 
open to free inquiry. Especially let it renounce 
that poor and unscientific appeal to miraculous 
evidence, which has hitherto been customary.” * 
Again he says, “The original, innocent belief in 
miracles, was nothing but a branch of the moral 
faith, that a man with purer, diviner power of spirit 
and life, the pure, ideal man, had appeared; a 
faith that needed not for its assurance any specu- 
lative, historical proof, but simply the practical proof 
from the excitement and direction of life received 
from him.” fT 

“The system of De Wette,” says Mr. Nor- 
ton, “I conceive to be this; The truths of re- 
ligion are immediately perceived, or, as he ex- 
presses it, felt by the mind. ‘They need, or rather 
admit of, no other evidence than this intuitive per- 
ception. This alone affords that certainty which 
is necessary to faith. Iaith cannot rest on reason- 
ing, or external testimony, or historical knowledge 
..... The history of Christ is properly no object 
of religious faith. No new warranty of the truths 
of religion is given by their having been taught by 
bined Ms The outline of his history is true, but, as 
regards the accounts in the Gospels, there is much 
that is questionable. ..... These accounts are to be 
regarded rather morally and spiritually, than in their 

* In an article on a work of Olshausen in the Theologische Studien 


und Kritiken, von Ulmann und Umbreit, 1834. ss. 151, 152. 
t Ibid. p. 145. 


ABO RECENT SYSTEMS OF 


literal meaning. They are to be viewed as sym- 
bolical of the zdeal in religion. ..... They may 
have abstract truth without historical reality, and, 
apart from all inquiry into their authenticity, may 
serve for spiritual edification.” * 

It will be observed that this system, in some of 
the particulars described, accords precisely with the 
plain English Deism of Morgan, while in others it 
runs into the mystical rhetoric of Schleiermacher. 
! add only the account of Strauss, who speaks of 
De Wette throughout in a friendly and respectful 
manner, and who, from his own practical acquaint- 
ance with the extraordinary phraseology of his coun- 
trymen on such subjects, must be esteemed a compe- 
tent interpreter. ‘ De Wette,” says he, ‘has attri- 
buted to the evangelical history a symbolic, ideal 
character, in virtue of which it is the expression and 
image of the human mind and its aptitudes. ‘The 
history of the miraculous conception of Jesus, accord- 
ing to him, represents the divine origin of religion; 
the recitals of his miracles typify the mdependent 
force of the human soul, and the sublime doctrine of 
the spiritual confidence which man reposes in him- 
self; his resurrection is the type of the victory of 
truth, the heralding sign of the triumph, one day to 
be accomplished, of good over evil; his ascension is 
a symbol of the everlasting glory of religion. The 
fundamental religious ideas which Jesus announced 
in his doctrine, are expressed with equal clearness. 
His history is an expression of enthusiasm, in his 


* Norton’s Remarks on a Late Pamphlet, pp. 62, 63. 


FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. A3 1 


courageous ministry, and in the conquering power 
of his coming ; an expression of resignation, in his 
conflict with the wickedness of men, in the mourn- 
ful tone of his prophecies, and, above all, in his 
death. Christ on the cross is, in his view, the 
image of humanity purified by sacrifice. ..... 
Finally, the idea of devotion is the key-note of 
the history of Jesus.”’* Strauss well concludes his 
sketch of the scheme of De Wette, and of another 
less noted theologian, Horst (who carried it out still 
further), by remarking, “ It is not faith only, it is 
science also, which is dissatisfied with such a point 
of view. Science perceives that to refer ideas to a 
simple possibility, to which no actual verity corre- 
sponds, is to suppress and destroy them altogether ;”’t 
which appears to be but a German way of saying, 
that, in the view of science, to deny that a thing 
related ever actually took place, is as much as to 
contradict the truth of the relation. 

When from Germany we turn to France, our at- 
tention is not attracted to any considerable recent 
work expressly directed against the authority of our 
religion. But the prevailing tone of its literature 
presents only too decisive indications, that the in- 
fluence of the infidel works of the last age, partic- 
ularly of the popular writings of Voltaire, has not 
passed away from the mind of that great people. 
Meanwhile its philosophy, in the rise of what calls 
itself, with no evident propriety, the ’clectic School, 
has, in the adoption of most of its elements from 


* Leben Jesu § 147. (B. II. ss. 757, 758.) t Ibid. (s. 760.) 


AB2, THE FRENCH ECLECTIC SCHOOL. 


German speculation, manifested more clearly an 
anti-Christian tendency, the more it has been 
developed. Until within thirty years, the philoso- 
phy of Condillac, who, professing to tread in the 
footsteps of Locke, proceeded to conclusions which 
that great philosopher never would have owned as 
flowing from, or in any way consistent with, his 
own principles, made the approved metaphysics of 
France. The progress of the re-action from that 
system,—called, by those who have revolted from it, 
the system of the sensuous or sensual school (a 
name explained by them as descriptive of the fact of 
its referring all knowledge ultimately to sensation), 
— may be traced, by whoever is disposed to such in- 
quiries, in the compendious Essay, by Damuiron, 
‘On the History of Philosophy in France in the 
Nineteenth Century ;”” a work however which re- 
quires to be read with the most ample allowance 
for the partiality of its author to the new philosophy. 

The first remarkable appearance of dissent from 
the doctrines of Condillac was exhibited in 1811 and 
the two following years, in a series of Lectures, deliv- 
ered in Paris by Laromiguiére, in which was main- 
tained the theory that the mental faculties, both of 
understanding and of volition, have a different princi- 
ple from sensation, and are to be referred to atten- 
tion as their ultimate basis. Maine de Biran fol- 
lowed with another blow at the received hypothesis, 
in bringing into prominent view the principle of the 
original activity of the human mind, and working 
up that element into the doctrine that will, cause, 


VICTOR COUSIN. 433 


and personality are identical, which has been called 
‘a re-instating of spiritualism in philosophy on the 
basis of experience.” ‘The new views acquired still 
more completeness and consideration in the hands 
of Royer-Collard, who kept no longer any terms 
with the system of Condillac; and of Royer-Collard, 
Victor Cousin was the favorite pupil and friend. 

In 1817 and 1818, having succeeded his master 
two or three years before as Professor of Philoso- 
phy in the Normal School at Paris, Cousin passed 
several months in Germany, for the purpose of 
acquainting himself with the speculations then in 
credit in that country ; and, without adopting as a 
whole any system which he found there, his views 
then took decidedly, as they had probably before 
partially taken, a congenial direction, which has 
caused him since to be regarded as the most intelligi- 
ble expositor of German metaphysics to the Western 
nations. ‘Though a voluminous writer, he has as yet 
embodied his views in no set treatise, his work enti- 
tled by the American translator ‘“‘ Elements of Psy- 
chology ” consisting only of a portion of the author’s 
series of lectures “On the History of Philosophy 
in the Eighteenth Century ”; but the outlines of 
his system may perhaps be as well understood from 
his disconnected treatises, as the nature of the sys- 
tem admits. We are no further concerned with it 
than as to what respects its relations to theology. 

Cousin identifies the Godhead with an abstract 
idea. A personal, individual Deity finds no place 
in his system. ‘The finite, the infinite, and the re- 

Vou. II. 55 


AGA RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN FRANCE. 


lation of the finite to the infinite, — ‘‘ These ideas,” 
says he, in so many words, ‘are God himself.” * 
These three elements, ‘a triplicity, which resolves 
itself into unity, and a unity which developes itself 
into triplicity,” “forms the foundation of Eternal 
Reason.” ‘ Here is that thrice holy God, whom 
the family of man recognises and adores. ..... 
But we are now above the world, above humanity, 
above human reason. We are no longer in nature 
and humanity, we are only in the world of ideas.” T 
J can imagine no way of reconciling such language 
with the belief of a God in any proper sense of 
that word, as an intelligent agent in his universe, 
and the living object of an intelligent regard. A 
general idea is nothing. It is a creation of man’s 
intelligence. A God is the being who made us, 
not the thing which we make. If there is meaning 
in language, to own no other deity than this, is to 
be “without God in the world.” 

While what I can regard in no other light, than 
as a denial of a God by this writer, removes the 
necessary basis on which Christianity, to be sus- 
tained at all, must stand, I find nothing in his works 
which affords us opportunity to combat an argument 
against the divine origin of that religion. So far 
as his philosophy should obtain prevalence, an assault 
of that nature would become superfluous. The 
foundation sinking, the edifice would fall. The 
position, which Cousin has chosen publicly to oc- 
cupy in relation to it, may be judged from the 


* Introduction, &c. p. 158. t Ibid. pp. 131, 182. 


VICTOR COUSIN. 4.35 


few following sentences. ‘ Christianity,” he says, 
‘cis the philosophy of the people. He who now 
addresses you sprang from the people, and from 
Christianity, and | trust you will always recognise 
this in my profound and tender respect for all that 
as of the people and of Christianity. Philosophy is 
patient. She knows what was the course of events 
in former generations, and she is full of confidence 
in the future. Happy in seeing the great bulk of 
mankind in the arms of Christianity, she offers, 
with modest kindness, to assist her in ascending to 
a yet loftier elevation.” * Again, he calls it ‘“ the 
best of all religions, and the most accomplished of 
all,” and notes, that ‘‘ the Christian religion is that 
which of all other religions came last,” and that 
‘‘it is unreasonable to suppose that the religion 
which came last should not be better than all others, 
should not embrace and recapitulate them all.” f 

A translation of miscellaneous papers of his, pub- 
lished four years ago in this city, contains a short 
extract from a ‘“ Report on the State of Public In- 
struction in Prussia,’’ in which he recommends the 
teaching of Christianity in the schools of France ; 
but it is not on grounds which imply any conviction 
of its authoritative character, where, had such a 
conviction been entertained, the occasion could not 
well have failed to lead to its expression. ‘ We 
must teach our children,” he says, ‘“ that religion 
which civilized our fathers, that religion whose lib- 
eral spirit prepared, and can alone sustain, all the 


* Introduction, &c., p. 57. t Ibid. pp. 338, 339. 


436 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN FRANCE. 


great institutions of modern times. ..... The man 
who holds this language to you is a philosopher, for- 
merly disliked, and even persecuted, by the priest- 
hood; but this philosopher has a mind too little 
affected by the recollection of his own insults, not 
to regard religion as an indestructible power, genuine 
Christianity as a means of civilization for the people, 
and a necessary support for those on whom society 
imposes irksome and humble duties, without the 
slightest prospect of fortune, without the least grati- 
fication of self-love.*” ‘This is language very suit- 
able to its purpose; but it is the language of a 
politician, and not in the slightest degree inconsist- 
ent with utter infidelity on the part of him who 
uses it. 

The truly French mind of Benjamin Constant 
had not gone through the same training in German 
dialectics ; and his work, published ten or fifteen 
years ago, entitled ‘On Religion, considered in its 
Source, its Forms, and its Developements,” affords 
us so far a better indication of the state of feeling 
and opinion, in the highest speculative quarters in 
France, in respect to Christianity regarded in its 
proper character of an authoritative revelation. 
With him the germ of religion, the sentiment, 1s 
implanted by nature in the human soul. The rest 
is discovery ; the improved knowledge of its truths 
keeping pace with the progress of intelligence, and 
the great doctrines obtaining access at the great 


Ripley’s Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, Vol. I. pp. 
237, 238. 


BENJAMIN CONSTANT. 437 


eras of the advancement of humanity. In his phi- 
losophy, what distinguishes man from other creatures 
is his capacity or propensity for religion. He labors 
the argument, with great variety of illustration from 
history and books of travels, that this capacity or 
propensity is universal ; and in his view it assumes 
the place of a substantial proof of the existence of 
some higher power. 

The religious sentiment tends to clothe itself in 
some form, to embody and establish itself in some 
institutions, because it seeks companionship and 
sympathy, and desires to be assured of its perpetuity 
in the world. But these forms and institutions, 
being something unchangeable and stable, while 
religious sentiment tends to constant advancement, 
come at length to obstruct the growth of those 
ideas and feelings which once they fitly represented. 
For a time there will be an effort so to interpret 
the external form, as to correspond to the improved 
intellectual conception. But that endeavour, in the 
continually advancing change of the conception, 
will at length become too unsatisfactory, and will be 
abandoned. In short, there will be a religious revo- 
lution, introducing a new set of symbols and institu- 
tions befitting the new position which the mind has 
reached. 

The succession of instituted religions, of forms 
of faith and worship, corresponds to the great pe- 
riods in the civilization of man; for the object of 
his worship is always the highest excellence which 
he has attained the capacity of conceiving. He 


A38 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN FRANCE. 


embodies in his religion his best ideas of truth, 
beauty, and goodness. The grossest form is that 
of fetichism, the worship of a visible, inanimate 
object. But, where it prevails, it represents the 
highest idea which the savages that practise it are 
capable of grasping. At length, however, the pro- 
gress of the mind dissolves this connexion. Fet- 
ichism and a degree of civilization cannot co-exist. 
The latter is tenacious; the former is thrown off; 
and polytheism takes its place. The temples, 
altars, and statues of many gods are set up. 

The natural religious sentiment expands itself in 
this form. Its period of novelty is a period of en- 
thusiasm. Then comes a time of reflection and 
method, and the worship and faith take a definite, 
and, as a definite, so too a permanent shape, which 
tallies with the habits of thought, with the degree 
of mental and moral advancement, of the age when 
it is elaborated and matured. But polytheism is 
destined in its turn to be overthrown by a revolution 
growing out of similar causes to those which installed 
it in power. Civilization cannot stop at the point 
which it has reached, and polytheism, fastened to 
a spot by its formulas of faith and its public ritual, 
cannot keep up with its march. The distance 
keeps widening, till at last these two part company, 
and polytheism is left behind to perish, as fetichism 
had been before. The human mind has grown 
up to theism, and then, still further, from the theism 
of the law of Moses it has grown up to that of 
Christianity. 


BENJAMIN CONSTANT. 439 


Such, in brief, is the system of Benjamin Con- 
stant. In order to attribute to it unity and com- 
pleteness, it would be necessary to understand him 
as regarding Christianity not in the light of a su- 
pernatural communication from God to man, but as 
a scheme elaborated by the mind of man, and good 
for the uses of the period when it was devised, as 
fetichism first, and then polytheism, had been be- 
fore it; and that this was the view to which his 
own mind decidedly leaned, I conceive will be the 
conclusion of every reader of his work. 

Yet he shrank from the assertion of that view ; 
and, in acouple of pages at the end of his five vol- 
umes, he is at pains to say that his system does not 
exclude the idea of an occasional supernatural inter- 
position, because it is not incredible that a direct di- 
vine agency should come in aid of a tendency of the 
human soul, already developed, but weak and strug- 
eling with difficulties.* It is not improbable, that 
as, according to a letter of his own published by 
Chateaubriand, he changed his mind, in the progress 
of his work, from disbelief to belief in a divinity, 
so the inquiries, through which it had conducted 
him, had created some distrust of the possibility of 
ascribing that human origin to Christianity, which 
is necessary in order to bring the appearance of 
that religion into accordance with the doctrine of 
the treatise, and which there can be little doubt, 
that, at least till a late period of his labors, he in- 


* Dela Religion, &c. Tome V. pp. 205— 207, (Edit. Paris, 1831.) 


44.0 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN FRANCE. 


tended to affirm. If so, the fact affords an agree- 
able illustration, which one wishes had been made 
more distinct, of the force of truth, on the one side, 
and of the openness to conviction of a learned the- 
orist’s mind, on the other. He says also, in another 
place, of the Jewish religion, that it is impossible 
to refer it to an Egyptian origin, and adds, “1 
declare this with the stronger conviction, inasmuch 
as my opinion has been very slowly formed, and as 
it were in spite of myself. The appearance and 
the permanence of the Jewish theism at a time and 
among a people, equally incapable of conceiving 
the idea, and of preserving it when presented, are 
phenomena which cannot be explained to my mind 
by the common principles of reasoning. If that 
which I call revelation, divine teaching, light pro- 
ceeding from the wisdom and goodness of God, be 
called by others an inward sentiment, the develope- 
ment of a germ implanted in the human soul, it is 
of little consequence.” * 

The last clause shows in what sense. — a sense 
quite consistent with the denial of supernatural 
operation, —he was disposed to trace the Jewish 
religion to a revelation from God. He appears to 
have designed to use the word revelation in the 
same sense as that which we formerly saw to be 
admitted by the English Deist, Morgan, — that is, 
of a discovery made by some single mind in a nat- 
ural use of its faculties under the influence of favor- 


* De la Religion, &c. Tome II. pp. 219 — 221. 


BENJAMIN CONSTANT. 4A 


able circumstances directed by the providence 
of God; a sense, in which obviously the truths 
revealed become a subject of faith only to the 
mind which has been enabled to discover them. 
To any other mind, they can only rest, as before, 
on their own intrinsic reasons, such as these may be. 

The writings, to which our attention has been 
given this evening, demanded notice in the enume- 
ration that has been undertaken, because of the 
important influence, which respectively they have 
exerted or are exerting; although they have not, 
in the same express manner as others, assailed par- 
ticular points of the evidence on which a reasona- 
ble Christian founds his belief. Had they done so, 
they would have supplied to us, as other writings 
have done, a topic for some particular course of ar- 
gument in refutation of their anti-Christian conclu- 
sions. What they have done is, with more or less 
explicitness, to assume, — to assume, not to argue, 
—three things; 1. That the truths, embraced in 
Christianity, more or fewer, were truths capable of 
discovery by the human mind in the natural use of 
its functions, or that they need no other proof than 
the mind’s own intuitions; 2. That a miraculous, 
divine attestation to those truths is essentially in- 
credible; 3. ‘That, in point of historical truth, a 
reasonable man may withhold his belief from the 
testimony contained in the Christian records. 

To each of these propositions a detailed answer 
Was given in my first course of Lectures; and, if the 
view, which upon each successively was then pre- 

Vou. Il. 56 


AAP, CONCLUSION. 


sented, was well sustained, neither of them can 
bear examination. 

As to the abstract credibility of miraculous inter- 
position, it is just as undeniable as is the existence 
of an almighty and benevolent God, who will bene- 
fit his creatures in this way when the exigency is 
such as to make this way the appropriate one. As 
to the rightful demand of the Gospels upon a rea- 
sonable man’s belief, it is just as certain as, what 
I endeavoured to show, that they were, without 
controversy, the production of the honest and com- 
petent writers whose name they bear. And, as to 
intuition of the truth of Christianity, independent 
of external evidence sustaining the divine authority 
of its founder,—if any man tells me that he 
believes the doctrine of immortality, for instance, 
not on the authoritative declaration of Jesus, but 
on the ground of its own intrinsic verisimilitude, 
because it seems to his mind reasonable, because it 
looks as if it were true, I will not say | envy him his 
easy faith, but sure I am, that he is the last person 
to tax me with credulity. I cannot be so credu- 
lous as he. I cannot accept so vast a dogma with- 
out further proof. And that proof, which my reason- 
ing faculty in this case requires, is the word of him 
who called on me to believe him for his “very 
works’ sake,”— the works which God, dwelling in 
him, enabled him to do. I can find no other safe 
foothold, and therefore would be devoutly thankful 
for this. With Locke, whose mind had as much 
within its unaided range as most men’s, I do not 


CONCLUSION. AAS 


find that I know enough alone about God and duty, 
and am fain to “ thank God for the light of Revela- 
tion, which sets my poor reason at rest in many 
things that lay beyond the reach of its discovery.” 


I have thus concluded, in a manner doubtless 
most unworthy of the subject, that survey of the 
infidel writers of ancient and modern times, begun 
in my course of Lectures last winter. I am not 
aware that any original contribution to the infidel 
argument has recently attracted attention in Eng- 
land or this country; — the “ Diegesis” of ‘Taylor, 
which obtained some circulation, bemg but a 
rifacimento of Bolingbroke, Paine, Voltaire, and 
especially Dupuis and Volney; and other compends 
of less pretensions, as far as they have come to my 
knowledge, being marked with a similar character. 
In this survey, while it would have been impossible 
to particularize every writer against Christianity, 
unless I had chosen the unprofitable task of nam- 
ing each with a few passing comments, and that 
at the expense of wearisome repetition of the same 
thoughts, [ have in no instance intentionally omitted 
to bring to view the principal representative of 
each separate class of objections; and it has been 
my honest purpose, pursued to the best of my 
capacity and knowledge, neither to pass over nor to 
misrepresent any hostile argument. I ought per- 
haps to add in respect to, here and there, a view of 
my own, —the least likely, it may be, of any which 
I have presented, to obtain general acceptance, 


AAA, CONCLUSION. 


in the actual state of opinion, —that it would be 
erroneous for any hearer to identify them with the 
opinions of any denomination of Christians. Right 
or wrong, no such connexion in point of fact exists ; 
and I may make this remark more specific in rela- 
tion to views expressed respecting the interpreta- 
tion of the Old Testament and its connexion with 
the New ; views, which, in their main features, I do 
not know to have been maintained by any writer. 

In relieving your patience, might I hope that, 
in the course of the reflections which have engaged 
us together, some reluctant mind has been won 
to the joys of faith, or some doubting spirit found 
repose, there is no other service which I should so 
rejoice to have performed. Nor, in parting from 
those who have honored me with their attention, 
can [ utter any other friendly wish with so cordial an 
emphasis, as that they may have continually deeper 
and brighter convictions, from their own experience, 
of the worth of that glorious Gospel, which, to the 
intelligent believer, is “‘ the wisdom of God and the 
power of God,” and the choicest of all expressions 
of his unutterable goodness. 


THE END. 


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